ULYSSES S. GRANT 




l-rom the collection of Frederick Hill .'/• - rw 
GRANT AS LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 
Photogi apfa by Brady 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 

BY 

LOUIS A. COOLIDGE 

\\ 

With Portraits 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1917 



■C7f 






COPYRIGHT, I917, BY LOUIS A. COOLIDGE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published February jqiy 



FEB -7 1917 

>C! A 153960 
/ 



AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

In writing this book it has of course been necessary 
to consult many others, reference to which could not 
be made in the run of narrative without impeding its 
flow. 

On the military side of Grant's career: The Per- 
sonal Memoirs; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: 
Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln ; Richardson's Personal 
History of U. S. Grant; Badeau's Military History; 
the books of Generals Sherman, Sheridan, Schofield, 
McClellan, and James H. Wilson; Dana's Recollec- 
tions of the Civil War; Horace Porter's Campaigning 
with Grant; John Fiske's The Mississippi Valley 
in the Civil War; Recollections of A. H. Stephens; 
Grant's letters to his family, to Washburne, and to 
Badeau; the letters of the Sherman brothers — Te- 
cumseh and John; Gamaliel Bradford's delightful 
series of Union and Confederate Portraits; Owen 
Wister's brilliantly brief and tantalizing sketch. 

On the civil side a multitude of writers have con- 
tributed material or incident. No one can hope to 
deal with any phase of the period of the Civil War 
and Reconstruction without resorting frequently to 



vi \\ ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Rhodes's History of the United States, a monument of 
research and an exhaustless well of information. 
Thai one may be compelled at times to differ with 
his eonelusions does not lessen the obligation due. 

Among other books which have proved of service 
are: Blaine's Twenty Years in Congress; The Autobi- 
ography of George F. Hoar; the Reminiscences of 
John Sherman and of Carl Schurz; The Diary of 
Gideon II Y//r.v; Hugh McCulloch's Men and Measures 
of Half a Century; Merriam's Life and Times of 
Samuel Bowles; the lives of Stanton, Conkling, Mor- 
ton, Chandler, and Trumbull; Badeau's Grant in 
Peace; the lives of Sumner, Chase, Stevens, Charles 
Francis Adams, Seward, Sherman, and Hay in the 
American Statesmen Series; Henry Adams's His- 
torical Essays; John Bigelow's Retrospections of an 
Active Life; ftfcPherson's History of Reconstruction; 
DeWitt's Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson; 
John Russell Young's Around the World with General 
Grant; Haworth's Disputed Election of 1S76; Joseph 
Bucklin Bishop's Presidential Nominations and Elec- 
tions; Stanwood's History of the Presidency; James 
L. Post's little volume of Reminiscences of Personal 
Friends; the I Alters of Charles Eliot Norton; the cor- 
respondence of John Lothrop Motley; Oliver Wen- 
dell Holmes's sketch of Motley's life: Senator Lodge's 
Early Memories; Charles Francis Adams's The Treaty 



AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT vii 

of Washington. The lives of Grant which have been 
prepared by Garland, Edmonds, King, and others 
are excellent in their recital of his exploits in the Civil 
War, but do not undertake a comprehensive treat- 
ment of his public service after Appomattox. 

It must be borne in mind that Grant had two 
distinct careers, each of its own right meriting a 
place in history. Biographers have not been nig- 
gardly with one, and what they have written has 
enriched his fame; but with the other they have 
been less kind. It has not been the literary fashion 
to commend him much for his achievements after 
the Rebellion; yet his success as President in set- 
ting our feet firmly in the paths of peace and in 
establishing our credit with the nations of the world 
is hardly less significant than his success in war. 



CONTENTS 

I. The Man 1 

I. EARLY INFLUENCES 3 

II. BOYHOOD 9 

II. The Training of a Soldier 

i. west point 15 

ii. cadet grant 20 

iii. mexico 25 

III. Ad Interim 

I. WASTED YEARS 31 

II. A STRUGGLE FOR A LIVING .... 36 

IV. The Awakening 41 

V. Called to the Colors 45 

VI. In Command 51 

VII. Brigadier-General 57 

VIII. Paducah, Belmont 61 

IX. Donelson 66 

X. Under a Cloud 76 

XL Shiloh 83 

XII. Humiliation 94 

XIII. The Mississippi Campaign 104 

XIV. McClernand 109 

XV. VlCKSBURG 115 

XVI. Rawlins and Dana 124 



x CONTENTS 

XVII Chattanooga and Missionary Ridge. 130 

XVIII. LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 141 

XIX. The Clinch with Lee .... 152 

XX. From Cold Harbor to Petersburg . 1C8 

XXI. Sheridan, Sherman, Thomas . . . 177 

XXII. Peace 187 

XXIII. A General without his Army . . 202 

XXIV. Reconstruction 208 

XXV. Lessons an Political Intrigue . . 226 

XXVI. Johnson's Break with Congress. . 230 
XXVII. At Odds with Johnson . . . .242 
XXVIII. Acting Secretary of War . . . 254 
XXIX. A Question of Veracity — The Im- 
peachment Proceedings — Election 

3 President 2G1 

XXX. President of the United States . 274 

XXXI. Personal Equations 284 

XXXII. Arbitration with Great Britain . 293 

XXXIII. The San Domingo Tragedy . . . 312 

XXXIV. The Cuban Problem — Sound Finance 

— "Black Friday" 335 

XXXV. The Legal Tender Decision . . 350 
XXXVI. Bitter Problems — The South — The 

Negro Enforcement Acts . . 357 
XXXVII. Causes rou Party Disaffection . . 379 
XXXVIII. Reforms— The Tariff; The Civil 

Servk e; The Indian .... 39-1 



CONTENTS xi 

XXXIX. The Greeley Episode .... 407 
XL. Credit Mobilier — The Back Pay 

Grab — The Sanborn Contracts . 427 
XLI. Veto of the Inflation Bill — The 

Resumption Act 442 

XLII. A Solid South in the Making . . 456 
XLIII. The Whiskey Ring — The Belknap 
Case — Grant's Steadfast Loyalty 
— The Chief Justiceship . . . 473 
XLIV. The Disputed Election of 1876 . . 496 
XLV. The Administration in Review . . 521 
XL VI. The Trip around the World — The 

Third Term 534 

XLVIL The End 549 

Index 567 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Grant as Lieutenant-General . . . Frontispiece 
Photograph by Brady 

Grant as a Brigadier-General 64 

Photograph taken in November, 1861 

Grant as Major-General Commanding in the 

West 116 

Photograph by J. E. McClees, Philadelphia 

Grant at Cold Harbor, Virginia, June 14, 1864 166 
Photograph by Brady 
Showing also Col. John A. Rawlins, Col. Theodore S. 
Bowers, Col. William L. Duff, Gen. John G. Bar- 
nard, and others. 

Grant as Lieutenant-General (standing) . . 200 
Photograph taken about 1865, furnished by Mr. Charles 
E. Goodspeed 

Grant in his Second Term as President . . 438 
Photograph by Brady, taken in Washington 

Grant at Sixty 55% 

Photograph by Fredricks, New York, 1882 

Grant writing his Memoirs at Mount McGregor 564 



With the single exception noted, the illustrations are 
from photographs in the collection of Mr. Frederick 
Hill Meserve, of New York 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 

CHAPTER I 

THE MAN 

No man who ever gained enduring fame was more the 
sport of chance than Grant. No character in history 
has achieved supreme success in war or the supreme 
reward of politics who owed less to his own ambition 
or design. A still and simple citizen, accustomed 
mostly to the ways of unkempt Western towns, un- 
gifted with imagination, indifferent to the general 
stir of things, and barely equal to the task of fur- 
nishing his family such modest comforts as the neigh- 
bors had, he was untouched even by evanescent lik- 
ing for a military life up to the moment when he 
flashed across the vision of the world ■ — the great- 
est captain of his time. And when with war in retro- 
spect he would have been content to live in quiet 
contemplation of his strange career, unskilled in 
politics, innocent of the arts of government, he was 
compelled by force of circumstance for eight event- 
ful years to occupy the highest civil place his coun- 
trymen could give. He was the child of splendid 
opportunities which came to him unsought, for 



2 I LYSSES S. GRANT 

which he never seemed to care, and which he met 

with calm assurance of his own capacity. 

He rode upon the turmoil which had tossed him 
to its top serenely confident in his ability to guide 
gigantic forces thrust into his hands. He saw his 
country reunited, well advanced upon a clearly 
marked and broadening road; then willingly went 
back to private life, rich only in the opulence of fame, 
unspoiled, unfretted by regrets, and undisturbed by 
dreams. When he was made Lieutenant-General 
and wrote to Sherman, acknowledging that soldier's 
aid in his advancement, Sherman with equal mag- 
nanimity replied: "I believe you are as brave, patri- 
otic, and just as the great prototype Washington, as 
unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man should 
be; but the chief characteristic is the simple faith 
in success you have always manifested which I can 
liken to nothing else than the faith a Christian 
has in a Saviour." So he seemed to one who saw 
him near at hand in war; thus looking back we 
all can now perceive his childlike trust in time of 
peace. 

That this shy, silent man, after a humdrum life 
till middle age, should have beheld the span of his 
remaining years studded with triumphs and with 
tragedies presents a riddle to the student of his time. 
His mind was not attuned to notions of retreat, of 



EARLY INFLUENCES 3 

indirection, or diplomacy. He thought straightfor- 
ward and was free from artifice — rare qualities which 
served him well in war and in most great execu- 
tive emergencies, but were not fitted to the sinuous 
ways of peace, the strategy of politics, the mysteries 
of finance, the subtle schemes of courtiers and dis- 
honest satellites; and so it came about that both as 
President and as private citizen the record of his truly 
great accomplishments is soiled with pages which we 
would tear out if we could. Yet we should hate to 
lose the last heroic chapter, even though its sordid 
prelude is indispensable to the complete disclosure 
of unstained nobility of soul. 

I. EARLY INFLUENCES 

Straggling along the northern bank of the Ohio, 
a hundred years ago, there was a broken line of settle- 
ments which served as landings for the lazy river 
craft. One of them, twenty-five miles southeast of 
Cincinnati, perched on a river bend, was called Point 
Pleasant. Most of its dozen families had drifted in 
there from the South. A few other settlers were 
scattered within a radius of twenty miles. Here in 
a two-room cottage, near the river front, Grant was 
born on April 27, 1822. 

His father was Jesse Root Grant, a recent comer 
from the northeast corner of the State, who was 



4 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

running a small tannery for another settler. His 
mother, Hannah Simpson Grant, was the daughter 
of a thrifty farmer lately arrived in the county from 
Pennsylvania, a few miles out of Philadelphia. His 
name was chosen by lot at a family gathering on the 
Simpson farm six weeks after he was born. It is said 
a maiden aunt drew from a hat a slip bearing the 
name "Ulysses," the choice of Grandmother Simp- 
son who had been reading Fenelon's "Telemachus" 
and liked the character of whom it was written: "His 
wisdom is, as it were, a seal upon his lips, which is 
never broken but for an important purpose." "Hi- 
ram" was added to please someone else, and he was 
"Hiram Ulysses" till he went to West Point, when 
the Congressman who sent him there rechristened 
him "Ulysses Simpson Grant" through a mistake 
in making out the papers. That is his name in his- 
tory. The neighbors called him "Useless" as a boy; 
his nickname at AYest Point was "Uncle Sam" or 
"Sam." His soldiers spoke of him as "Unconditional 
Surrender." 

When Ulysses was a little over a year old, his 
father, having laid aside eleven hundred dollars, 
determined to set up in business for himself, and 
moved to Georgetown in the neighboring county, a 
backwoods settlement, twenty miles east and ten 
miles inland from the river. Though smaller even 



EARLY INFLUENCES 5 

than Point Pleasant, it had advantages from a young 
tanner's viewpoint: it was a county seat, likely to 
grow; it was in the midst of an oak forest accessible 
to bark. Its dozen houses — some of frame, a few 
of brick — were cheerless, primitive, and crude — a 
downstairs room in which the family lived and ate, 
a garret where they slept, a lean-to kitchen in the 
rear. Jesse Grant built him one of brick, to which 
he added now and then as family and fortune grew, 
till it was bigger and somewhat better than the rest, 
though it would be black-listed by the health author- 
ities in any self-respecting town to-day. Here the 
boy lived until he went to school. 

Life had few comforts and no graces for the Grants. 
The furniture was rough and scanty, the walls were 
bare, the reading limited to a few sermons, hymn- 
books, and Weems's "Washington," unless they bor- 
rowed from the neighbors; the mother did her own 
housework like the other women in the village, cook- 
ing at an open fireplace with pots and crane; the 
children did the chores. The only thing resembling 
music was the wail of hymns in the tiny Methodist 
meeting-house, or the squeak of a fiddle in the primi- 
tive tavern where travelers dropped in off and on 
and the men of the village took their toddy, almost 
their only indoor sport. Throughout his life Ulysses 
Grant could never tell one note from another. " Old 



6 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Hundred" .and the "Fisher's Hornpipe" were all the 
same to him. 

And yet this ragged little place had its distinctions 
aside from having been the boyhood home of Grant. 
When the Civil War broke out it had a population of 
a thousand, largely of Southern tendencies. In some 
of the churches Grant himself has said that member- 
ship depended more upon hostility to the war and 
liberation of the slaves than upon belief in the au- 
thenticity of the Bible. There was no time during the 
Civil War when the majority would not have voted 
for Jefferson Davis for President instead of Lincoln, 
if they had had the chance. "Yet this far-off West- 
ern village," he writes, "with a population, including 
old and young, male and female, of about one thou- 
sand, — about enough for the organization of a single 
regiment, if all had been men capable of bearing arms, 
— furnished the Union army four general officers and 
one colonel, West Point graduates, and nine generals 
and field officers of volunteers." 

Jesse Grant stood well, but had his idiosyncrasies 
and was not over-popular. lie was thrifty, indus- 
trious, and independent, held emphatic opinions on 
politics and other questions, not altogether palatable 
to his neighbors, and was not tactful in the time and 
manner of expounding them. A Northern radical 
among Southern sympathizers he did not bother to 



EARLY INFLUENCES 7 

adjust himself to his surroundings. He was a good 
debater, according to his son; read every book that 
he could borrow and remembered everything he 
read — almost his only education. He was muscular, 
six feet in height, and morally courageous, but cred- 
ulous, ingenuous, garrulous, and disputatious. He 
was a rhymester, and some of his verses printed in 
the local weekly have been preserved, but he could 
write and speak tersely and forcefully. The tavern 
loafers with whom he did not fraternize laughed at 
his carriage and his gold-bowed spectacles, the first 
in the settlement, and were amused because of his 
transparent pride in young Ulysses, whom they called 
dull because he was not "smart" and "talky" like 
the other village boys. 

Jesse had pride of ancestry and was at pains to 
trace his family to its New England source. He 
found that Matthew Grant in 1630 came from Eng- 
land to Dorchester in Massachusetts, and shortly 
moved to Windsor in Connecticut, where his descend- 
ants lived till his own father's day; that his grand- 
father had a commission in the English army and 
was killed in the French-and-Indian War. His 
father, Captain Noah Grant, was at the battle of 
Bunker Hill and served in the Continental Army 
through the Revolutionary War; after which he 
migrated first to Westmoreland County, Pennsyl- 



8 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

vania, and then to Decrfield, Ohio. Jesse had a half- 
brother, Peter, who went to Maysville, Kentucky, 
and grew rich. Noah, who was not forehanded, sub- 
sequently went to live with Peter, placing some of his 
other children in homes near Deerfield. Jesse worked 
for his "keep" with Judge Tod, the father of Gov- 
ernor Tod, and by a curious chance after learning 
his trade he worked for the father of John Brown 
of Ossawatomie, and lived in the house where John 
Brown himself was also living as a boy. Soon after 
he set up in business as a tanner chills and fever drove 
him to Point Pleasant, not far from Maysville, a 
seeming misfortune which he turned to good account; 
for with all his oddities he was resourceful in emer- 
gencies — a trait which he transmitted to his son. 

From his mother Ulysses inherited the gift of ret- 
icence and self-restraint. Some said he got his sense 
from her. He never saw her shed a tear; she seldom 
laughed; she never tried to guide him save by her 
own sweet, silent influence. Deeply religious herself, 
she did not undertake to make him so against his will. 

Even in his hour of fame she rarely spoke about her 
son or talked of his achievements except to say that 
she \\;ts thankful he had done so well. When the boy 
left home for his tirst long absence at ^Yest Point, she 
made him ready and said good-bye without a quiver 
of the lip. Thenceforth she saw him only at rare 



BOYHOOD 9 

intervals. When he was President she never came to 
Washington, which swarmed with less considerate 
relatives, but stayed at home working as usual about 
the house. It is written that she prayed for him con- 
stantly up to the day she died. " I have no recollection 
of ever having been punished at home either by scold- 
ing or by the rod," writes Grant; he never heard a 
harsh word from either father or mother, or knew 
either to do an unjust act; from West Point and from 
Mexico he wrote them letters full of gossip and af- 
fection. He was a natural, human sort of boy. 

II. BOYHOOD 
A knack with horses was Grant's most noticeable 
boyish asset — a trick of use to him in later years. 
He had a way of sticking to a job till it was done, 
though he might have to figure out odd means by 
which to do it — a trait which stood him in good stead 
through life. The numerous anecdotes about his boy- 
hood, current after he had won his fame, mostly il- 
lustrate one of these qualities, or both. Every one in 
the village who was at all well off worked with his 
hands; the better off, the harder. "It was only the 
very poor," Grant says, "who were exempt." He was 
a mere child when he began. His father had a farm 
as well as a tannery, with fifty acres of woods, a mile 
from the village, and before he was eight years old 



10 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Ulysses was hauling all the wood used in the house 
and the shops. He could not load it on the wagon, or 
unload it, hut he could drive. 

At eleven he was strong enough to hold a plough. 
"From this age till I was seventeen," he says, "I did 
all the work done with horses, such as breaking up 
the land, furrowing, ploughing corn and potatoes, 
bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the 
wood, besides tending two or three horses, a cow or 
two, and sawing wood for the stoves." For recrea- 
tion there were fishing and swimming in the summer, 
— he was an expert swimmer and diver, — skating 
and sleighing in the winter. Nothing extraordinary 
about all this. The other boys in the village were 
fond of hunting. Grant never hunted in his life, or 
used firearms for amusement. The thought of killing 
was abhorrent to him. He loved horses — earned 
money by driving out into the country passengers 
arriving in Georgetown by stage; at nine had a horse 
of his own. At ten he used to drive a span of horses 
alone to Cincinnati, forty miles, and bring home a 
load of passengers. He could do stunts at riding, 
coidd teach horses to pace, could break them to 
harness. "If I can mount a horse I can ride him," he 
used to say. He could handle horses easily because 
lie loved them. All his life he kept away from races. 
He thought them cruel. 



BOYHOOD 11 

When he was eleven his father, handy at making 
money in all sorts of ways, took a contract for build- 
ing the county jail, a job which called for hauling a 
great many logs; he bought a horse called Dave for 
Ulysses, and set him to hauling. The woods were two 
miles from the site of the jail, the logs a foot square 
and fourteen feet long. Eleven men did the hewing 
and loaded the logs; the boy drove. One cloudy day 
the hewers were not in the woods, and Ulysses was 
left alone, but by his own ingenuity the boy did the 
job of several strong men. A fallen maple lay slant- 
ing with its top caught in another tree. Using this as 
an inclined plane the boy hitched Dave to the logs, 
hauled them up on the trunk till they nearly bal- 
anced, and then backing the wagon up to it hitched 
Dave to them again and snaked them forward upon 
the axles one at a time. 

He was the best traveled boy in the village. At 
Flat Rock, Kentucky, on one of his trips he traded 
one of his horses for a saddle horse which caught his 
fancy. Here is his own illuminating story: "I was 
seventy miles from home with a carriage to take 
back and Mr. Payne said he did not know that his 
horse had ever had a collar on. I asked to have him 
hitched to a farm wagon, and we would soon see 
whether he would work. It was soon evident that the 
horse had never worn harness before ; but he showed 



12 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

no viciousness and I expressed a confidence that I 
could manage him. A trade was al once struck, I 
receiving ten dollars difference." The next day with 
a Georgetown neighbor whose brother had swapped 
the horse he started home. The horses were fright- 
ened and ran away twice. "The road we were on 
struck the turnpike within half a mile of the point 
where the second runaway commenced, and there 
was an embankment twenty or more feet deep on the 
opposite side of the pike. I got the horses stopped 
on the very brink of the precipice. My new horse 
was terribly frightened and trembled like an aspen; 
but he was not half so badly frightened as my com- 
panion, Mr. Payne, who deserted me after this last 
experience and took passage on a freight wagon for 
Maysville. Every time I attempted to start my new 
horse would commence to kick. I was in quite a 
dilemma for a time. Once in Maysville, I could 
borrow a horse from an uncle who lived there; but 
I was more than a day's travel from that point. 
Finally I took out my bandanna . . . and with this 
blindfolded my horse. In this way I reached Mays- 
ville safely the next day." 

He earned bis first money by taking a load of rags 
to Cincinnati, and selling it for fifteen dollars. He 
was less than twelve years old and the business ven- 
ture was his own device. " My best training," he con- 



BOYHOOD 13 

fided to Thomas Kilby Smith, at Vicksburg, "was 
before I went to West Point." 

There is another story made much of by biogra- 
phers given to drawing lessons, as showing the boy's 
guilelessness. It is about a colt which he was sent to 
buy. His father had offered twenty dollars, but the 
owner, Ralston, wanted twenty-five. "My father 
. . . said twenty dollars was all the horse was worth, 
and told me to offer that price. If it was not accepted, 
I was to offer twenty-two and a half, and if that would 
not bring him to give the twenty-five. I at once 
mounted a horse and went for the colt. When I got 
to Mr. Ralston's house I said to him: 'Papa says I 
may offer you twenty dollars for the colt, but if you 
won't take that I am to offer twenty-two and a half, 
and if you won't take that to give you twenty-five ! ' 
It would not take a Connecticut man to guess the 
price finally agreed upon." 

The story got out among the other boys, and it was 
a long time before he heard the last of it; but Grant 
was only eight years old. If we must have an in- 
cident disclosing Grant's guileless trust in others' 
honesty, we can find one more pertinent of a later 
date. There is a letter bearing date of October 24, 
1859, when, writing to his younger brother Simpson 
from St. Louis, he says: — 

"I have been postponing writing to you hoping to 



14 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

make a return for your horse — but as yet I have re- 
ceived nothing for him. About two weeks ago a man 
spoke to me for him and said that he would try him 
the next day, and if he suited give me $100 for him. I 
have not seen the man since; but one week ago last 
Saturday he went to the stable and got the horse, 
saddle, and bridle, since which I have seen neither 
man nor horse. From this I presume he must like 
him. The man I understand lives in Florisant, about 
twelve miles from the city. . . . 

"P.S. The man that has your horse is the owner of 
a row of six three-story brick houses in this city and 
the probabilities are that he intends to give me an 
order on his agent for the money on the first of the 
month when the rents are paid. At all events, I 
imagine the horse is perfectly safe." 



CHAPTER II 

THE TRAINING OF A SOLDIER 

I. WEST POINT 

Grant's early schooling, the best the village gave, 
and then two terms in private schools, at Maysville 
and at Ripley, was limited to the "three R's." He 
never saw an algebra till after his appointment to 
West Point, and as he studied no more than he could 
help, his scholarship left much to be desired. The love 
of learning which lured him from the tannery was 
probably as much his father's passion as his own. The 
knowledge which he found of greatest use in after 
years he garnered in the University of Common 
Sense. The ingenuity he showed in solving boyish 
problems was classified as genius when later put to 
harder tests. 

He says that as a boy he did not like to work, " but 
I did as much of it while young as grown men can be 
hired to do in these days and attended school at the 
same time"; yet, when he was not stirred to swift de- 
cision in emergencies, he was of sluggish habit all his 
days. "As I grow older I become more indolent, 
my besetting sin through life," he wrote, in 1873, 
when he was President, to Adam Badeau. But in 



16 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

necessity he was a thunderbolt. This mingling of tor- 
pidity and force throws light upon the seeming incon- 
sistencies of his career. Other men with contradic- 
tory traits have been conspicuous in history, but the 
career of none of them exhibits greater contrasts. 

Most of the villagers thought him backward when 
they thought of him at all, but they were rather fond 
of him in spite of his slow ways. He was pure-minded 
and clean of speech. He never swore; "a good steady 
boy with no bad habits"; "awkward and countri- 
fied"; "quiet and slow "; "a great hand to ask ques- 
tions"; "said little himself, but he could answer 
questions if you gave him time"; "always carried a 
stick; whittled most of the time, but never made any- 
thing"; "stumpy, freckle-faced, big-headed"; "stead- 
fast, manly"; "quiet gray-blue eyes, strong straight 
nose, straight brown hair and bulky build"; "not 
pugnacious"; "a lover of the woods"; "modest, un- 
assuming, determined, self-reliant, decisive." These 
are some of the phrases those who knew him as a boy 
have given us. And then this suggestive line from one 
of them: "A Favorite with the smaller boys of the 
village who had learned to look up to him as a sort 
of protector." 

He loathed the tannery, shrank from the thought 
of taking up his father's trade, and on a fateful day, 
when home from Ripley for the holidays, he was con- 



THE TRAINING OF A SOLDIER 17 

demned to help out in the beam room with its reeking 
hides, he told his father as he trudged along toward 
the repulsive task that he would work at it if neces- 
sary till he was twenty-one, but not a minute longer 
— that he had rather be a farmer or a down-the-river 
trader or get an education. Then Jesse Grant be- 
thought him of West Point. 

Five boys had already gone there from the county 
to get a start in life at government expense. The last 
of them, his nearest neighbor's son, had just been 
dropped for failure in examination, but was too 
proud to come back to the village, so that no one 
knew of his discomfiture except the Grants. Why not 
Ulysses for the vacancy? The Congressman, Thomas 
L. Hamer, belonged in Georgetown, and had once 
been Jesse's closest friend, but they had quarreled 
months before and were not then on speaking terms. 
He was a Democrat and Jesse was a Whig. So Jesse 
wrote to Thomas Morris, Senator from Ohio, but 
Morris turned the letter over to the Congressman, 
who, welcoming the chance to make up with his for- 
mer friend, agreed to the appointment out of hand. 
This was the winter of 1838-39. When Jesse read the 
letter from Morris telling him that his request had been 
handed on to Hamer, writes Grant in his " Mem- 
oirs," "he said to me, 'Ulysses, I believe you are 
going to receive the appointment.' 'What appoint- 



18 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

merit?' I inquired. 'To West Point; I have applied 
for it.' 'But I won't go,' I said. He said he thought 
I would, and I thought 80 too if he did. I really had no 
objection to going to West Point, except that I had 
a very exalted idea of the requirements necessary to 
get through. I did not believe I possessed them and 
could not bear the idea of failing." 

Thus with reluctance Grant entered on the train- 
ing for his great career. He says himself that he was 
led to fall in with his father's plan chiefly by his de- 
sire to travel. " I had been east to Wheeling, Virginia, 
and north to the W T estern Reserve in Ohio, west to 
Louisville and south to Bourbon County, Kentucky, 
besides having driven or ridden pretty much over the 
whole country within fifty miles of home. Going to 
West Point would give me the opportunity of visiting 
the two great cities of the continent, Philadelphia 
and New York. This was enough. When these 
places were visited I would have been glad to have 
had a steamboat or railroad collision or any other 
accident happen, by which I might have received a 
temporary injury sufficient to make me ineligible for 
a time to enter Hi-' Academy. Nothing of the kind 
occurred and I had to face the music. . . . A military 
life had n<> charms for me, and I had not the faintest 
idea of staying in the army even if I should be gradu- 
ated, which I did not expect." 



THE TRAINING OF A SOLDIER 19 

There was no thrill for him in the call of bugles or 
the roll of drums. A bill had been introduced in Con- 
gress abolishing the Academy. He watched its prog- 
ress impatiently, hoping it would pass, and when in 
time he became reconciled to the curriculum his idea 
was to get through the course, secure a detail for a few 
years as assistant professor of mathematics at the 
Academy, and afterward obtain a permanent posi- 
tion as professor in some respectable college, — " but 
circumstances always did shape my course different 
from my plans." At the same time there are occa- 
sional flashes of another mood, as when he writes 
his cousin : " I do love the place. It seems as though I 
could live here always if my friends would only come 
too." From his undemonstrative mother the boy had 
drawn a vein of sentiment. 

He took little interest in his studies; rarely went 
over a lesson a second time during his cadetship; for 
lack of something better got books from the library; 
read Bulwer, Cooper, Marryat, Scott, Irving, and 
Lever. Mathematics came "almost by intuition," 
he used to say, but other branches, especially French, 
were hard and his standing was low. "In fact if the 
class had been turned the other end foremost, I 
should have been near head. I never succeeded in 
getting squarely at either end of my class in any 
one study during the four years. I came near it in 



20 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

French, artillery, infantry and cavalry tactics, and 
conduct." He was good at draughtsmanship and did 
a few crude paintings which still survive. 

A ten weeks' furlough at the end of two years he 
enjoyed beyond any other period of his life. "My 
father had sold out his business in Georgetown — 
where my youth had been spent, and to which my 
day-dreams carried me back as my future home if I 
should ever be able to retire on a competency. He 
had moved to Bethel, only twelve miles away, in the 
adjoining county of Clermont, and had bought a 
young horse that had never been in harness for my 
special use under the saddle during my furlough. 
Most of my time was spent among my old school- 
mates — these ten weeks were shorter than one week 
at West Point." A wholesome picture. 

II., CADET GRANT 
Among the highly pedigreed young Southerners 
trained in the graces of society and looking on a sol- 
dier's calling as fit for scions of a landed aristocracy, 
the slouchy little Grant must have seemed out of 
picture — hopelessly middle-class and common. But 
unobtrusively — perhaps without quite knowing it 
himself — he was absorbing knowledge of the traits 
of many whom in after years he met in active service 
either as friends or foes. 



THE TRAINING OF A SOLDIER 21 

In the Academy while he was a cadet were several 
who won distinction on one side or the other in the 
Civil War: among them Sherman, Thomas, Long- 
street, Hardee, McClellan, Ewell, Buell, Rosecrans, 
and Buckner. In his own class were Franklin, 
Quinby, Gardner, Hamilton, and Rufus Ingalls, who 
was his room-mate for a time; that splendid soldier, 
Charles F. Smith, was commandant of cadets. From 
some of these we get a few swift pencilings. Sherman, 
three years his senior, tells of seeing " ' U. S. Grant ' 
on the bulletin board where the names of all new- 
comers were posted. One said, ' United States Grant ' ; 
another, 'Uncle Sam Grant'; a third shouted, 'Sam 
Grant.' The name stuck to him and by it he was 
henceforth known by the cadets at the Academy." 

"A lad without guile," says Viele; "I never heard 
him utter a profane or vulgar word." "A perfect 
sense of honor," says Longstreet. "The most scrupu- 
lous regard for truth," says Hardee. "Had a way of 
solving problems out of rule by the application of 
good hard sense," says Ingalls. Others say, "A clear 
thinker and a steady worker"; "Little enthusiasm in 
anything"; "Not a prominent man in the corps, but 
respected by all " ; " A very much liked sort of youth " ; 
"No bad habits whatever"; "No facility in conver- 
sation with the ladies, a total absence of elegance"; 
" Could n't dance, never attended parties or entered 



22 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

a private house"; "He never held his word light, he 
never said an untruthful word even in jest." 

A single splash of color to relieve the gray monotony. 
He was the most daring horseman in the Academy. 
" Grant's jump on York " is still conspicuous in the 
annals of West Point, when, in the presence of Win- 
field Scott and the official board of visitors, his horse 
leaped a bar held high above the head of a soldier who 
rested it against the wall. There is a tinge of the 
dramatic in the story of another exploit told by 
General James B. Fry, at the time a candidate 
for admission to the Academy: "When the regular 
service was completed, the class, still mounted, was 
formed in a line through the center of the hall. The 
riding-master placed the leaping-bar higher than a 
man's head and called out, 'Cadet Grant!' A clean- 
faced, slender, blue-eyed young fellow, weighing one 
hundred and twenty pounds, dashed from the ranks 
on a powerfully built chestnut sorrel horse and gal- 
loped down the opposite side of the hall. As he 
turned at the farther end and came into the stretch 
across which the bar was placed, the horse increased 
his pace, and measuring his strides for the great leap 
before him, bounded into the air and cleared the bar, 
carrying his rider as if man and beast had been 
welded together. The spectators were speechless. 
'Very well done, sir!' growled old Ilirshberger, the 



THE TRAINING OF A SOLDIER 23 

riding-master, and the class was dismissed and disap- 
peared; but Cadet Grant remained a living image in 
my memory." 

And there is the tale of his beating at the hands of 
a larger cadet, his going into training, and his final 
victory in a fourth encounter after a second and third 
defeat. 

As for predictions of his future greatness, we need 
not give them special weight. Such casual prophecies 
are remembered only after one has made them good. 
But it may well be true that Hardee said, while both 
were still in the Academy , that "if a great emergency 
arises in this country during our lifetime Sam Grant 
will be the man to meet it"; that one of his teachers 
said, "the smartest man in the class is little Grant!" 
and that in the first days of the Civil War, Ewell, 
then a Southern officer, remarked : " There is one West 
Pointer whom I hope the Northern people will not 
find out. I mean Sam Grant. ... I should fear him 
more than any of their officers I have yet heard of. 
He is not a man of genius, but he is clear-headed, 
quick and daring." 

Grant has told how he was dazzled by Winfield 
Scott, who in his first year's encampment came to 
review the cadets. "With his commanding figure, 
his quite colossal size and showy uniform, I thought 
him the finest specimen of manhood my eyes had ever 



24 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

beheld. I believe I did have a presentiment for a 
moment that some day I should occupy his place on 
review — although I had no intention then of re- 
maining in the army. My experience in the horse 
trade ten years before and the ridicule it caused me 
were too fresh in mind to communicate this presenti- 
ment even to my most intimate chum." He regarded 
General Scott and Captain C. F. Smith as "the two 
men most to be envied in the nation." 

Grant graduated from West Point in 1843, number 
21 in a roll of 89. He would have gone into the 
Dragoons, as the Cavalry was called then, but there 
was no room for him in the single regiment, and he 
was given his second choice, the Fourth Infantry. 
Before entering service he was furloughed at Bethel 
for three months, and while there the officers of the 
militia asked him to drill the troops at general muster. 
He was sickly at the time, a victim of the malady 
known as "Tyler's Grip." One who saw his exhibi- 
tion says that " he looked very young, very slender, 
and very pale"; that his voice "was clear and calm, 
cutting across the parade ground with great precision 
— rather high in pitch but trained." 

Grant has told of two trifling incidents during this 
furlough which gave him a distaste for military uni- 
forms from which he never recovered. Setting out 
bravely for Cincinnati in his regimentals he was 



THE TRAINING OF A SOLDIER 25 

followed by a boy who called out, " Soldier, will you 
work? No, sirree! I'll sell my shirt first"; and back 
in Bethel again he was mortified to find the drunken 
stable-man at the tavern parading the streets and 
doing the stable chores in bare feet with a pair of sky- 
blue nankeen pantaloons, "just the color of my uni- 
form trousers, with a strip of white cotton sheeting 
sewed down the outside seams in imitation of mine." 

III. MEXICO 

Grant wore his uniform eleven years. When he 
left West Point the regular army had 7500 men — 
not enough troops to go around among the officers 
who were graduated at the Academy. He was assigned 
to his regiment as a "supernumerary" with the rank 
and pay of a second lieutenant, and was ordered to Jef- 
ferson Barracks, near St. Louis, then "Far West." 

He was anxious to quit the service, and as a step 
toward getting a professorship in some little college 
he wrote to West Point asking for a detail to the Acad- 
emy as an assistant in mathematics. But before that 
could be brought about, Mexico began to boil, and 
in May, 1844, after nine months of garrison life, he 
was ordered south with his regiment. He had lost his 
heart meantime to Julia, the sister of his classmate 
Fred Dent, whose father, "Colonel" Dent, had a 
large plantation, "White Haven," about five miles 



26 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

from the Barracks, with negroes enough for comfort. 

There was his usual persistence in the manner 
of his wooing. He was on leave of absence when his 
regiment was ordered south, and when he got back to 
St. Louis the rest were gone. Before following them, 
he saddled a horse and set out for White Haven. On 
the road he had to cross a creek which ordinarily ran 
nearly dry, but on account of recent heavy rains was 
now overflowing with a rapid current. " I looked at it 
for a moment to consider what to do. One of my 
superstitions had always been, when I started to go 
anywhere or to do anything, not to turn back or stop 
until the thing intended was accomplished. I have 
frequently started to go to places where I had never 
been, and to which I did not know the way, depend- 
ing upon making inquiries on the road; and if I got 
past the place without knowing it, instead of turning 
back I would go on until a road was found turning 
in the right direction, take that, and come in by the 
other side. So I struck into the stream, and in an 
instant the horse was swimming, and I being carried 
down by the current. I headed the horse toward 
the other bank and soon reached it, wet through, and 
without other clothes on that side of the stream." He 
kept on, borrowed a dry suit from his future brother- 
in-law, and thus caparisoned declared his love. 

A year later he went back to St. Louis, and al- 



THE TRAINING OF A SOLDIER 27 

though the Colonel thought his daughter ought to 
look higher than "the small lieutenant with the large 
epaulets," he won a reluctant consent to an engage- 
ment. They did not marry till August 22, 1848, six 
months after the war with Mexico had come to an 
end. 

Before war was actually declared, Grant's regiment 
lay in camp for over a year at Fort Salubrity, in the 
pine woods near Natchitoches, between the Red 
River and the Sabine, then for two months in bar- 
racks at New Orleans, then by boat to Corpus 
Christi, at the mouth of the Nueces River in Texas, 
where the "army of occupation," three thousand 
men, was assembling under the command of Zachary 
Taylor. 

All this time the movement ostensibly had been to 
prevent filibustering, though there was no question 
among the troops that its real purpose was the menac- 
ing of Mexico and the annexation of Texas. "For 
myself," says Grant, "I was bitterly opposed to the 
measure, and to this day regard the war which re- 
sulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a 
stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance 
of a republic following the bad example of European 
monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire 
to acquire additional territory. . . . The occupation, 
separation, and annexation were, from the inception 



28 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of the movement to its final consummation, a con- 
spiracy to acquire territory out of which slave States 
might be formed for the American Union. Even if 
annexation itself could be justified, the manner in 
which the subsequent war was forced upon Mexico 
cannot. . . . The Southern rebellion was largely the 
outgrowth of the Mexican War. Nations like individ- 
uals are punished for their transgressions." 

But Grant was a soldier and took his orders. His 
Mexican service did him credit, though it did not 
give him fame. He went into the battle of Palo Alto 
a second lieutenant in May, 1846, and entered the 
City of Mexico, sixteen months later, with the same 
rank, — "after having been in all the battles possible 
for one man, and in a regiment that lost more officers 
during the war than it ever had present at any one 
engagement." But he was mentioned in reports and 
was brevetted first lieutenant and then captain for 
gallant conduct. General Worth made his "acknowl- 
edgments to Lieutenant Grant for distinguished 
services"; at Chapultepec, Major Francis Lee re- 
ported that "Lieutenant Grant behaved with dis- 
tinguished gallantry on the 13th and 1-ith"; Colonel 
Garland says: "I must not omit to call attention to 
Lieutenant Grant, who acquitted himself most nobly 
upon several occasions under my observation." 

He was early made regimental quartermaster, but 



THE TRAINING OF A SOLDIER 29 

this could not keep him out of action. At Monterey, 
he mounted a horse, left camp, rode to the front, and 
joined the charge — the only mounted man and thus 
a special target. When ammunition was low and 
there was a call for a volunteer to take out a message 
asking for new supplies, he swung himself over a 
saddle, and, with one foot holding to the cantle and 
one hand clutching the horse's mane, dashed down the 
empty street, within the range of fire from every side, 
leaped a four-foot wall and delivered his appeal. 

At Chapultepec he found a belfry which com- 
manded an important position, dragged a mountain 
howitzer to the top of it with the help of a few men, 
and dropped shots upon the enemy to their great 
confusion. 

At Molino del Rey, says Longstreet, "You could 
not keep Grant out of battle. The duties of quarter- 
master could not shut him out of his command. . . . 
Grant was everywhere on the field. He was always 
cool, swift, and unhurried in battle . . . unconscious 
apparently, as though it were a hail storm instead of a 
storm of bullets. ... I heard his colonel say: 'There 
goes a man of fire.' " 

" You want to know what my feelings were on the 
field of battle," he wrote home; "I don't know that 
I felt any peculiar sensation. War seems much less 
terrible to persons engaged in it than to people who 



30 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

read of battles." To an officer who asked him years 
later whether he ever felt fear on the battlefield he 
replied, "I never had time." 

Yet he was an eminently practical and efficient 
quartermaster. At Tacubaya and at Monterey he 
rented bakeries and ran them for the benefit of the 
regiment. "In two months I made more money for 
the regimental fund than my pay amounted to during 
the entire war." From his experience, then, as quar- 
termaster, with freedom to range in time of battle, he 
got ideas about feeding and clothing an army which 
stood him in good stead throughout the Civil War; 
and he learned other lessons in Mexico. He saw Scott 
cut loose from his supplies and live on the country; 
he saw Taylor cool and unhurried under fire, com- 
manding his troops, without a uniform save for a 
private's blouse, and learned from him simplicity in 
army regulation; he learned that he could keep his 
head while under fire; and he became familiar with 
the points of strength and weakness of officers against 
whom he was to be pitted in the Civil War. Lee, 
Longstreet, Buckner, Jackson, Pemberton, and the 
two Johnstons, Southerners, most of them of higher 
rank, never thought that in plain little Grant they 
were disclosing their true military quality to a com- 
ing conqueror. 



CHAPTER III 

AD INTERIM 
I. WASTED YEARS 

Peace with Mexico brought lethargy to Grant. 
After his mild experience with the world as a cadet 
and then in garrison and camp, he had had his fling 
with war and had come through with merit, though 
no great prestige. But he was now condemned to the 
monotony of a subaltern's life in frontier posts, with 
nothing to look forward to but years of drudgery, un- 
less he had the luck to strike a tour of duty which 
would open up the way to resignation and agreeable 
employment in civil life — like the professorship in 
mathematics to which he had aspired. But there was 
nothing of the kind in sight. As quartermaster he was 
stationed first at Sackett's Harbor, on Lake Ontario, 
for a cheerless winter, because another officer with 
greater pull at Washington had grabbed Detroit, the 
regimental headquarters which was supposed to 
have attractions in a social way, although a frontier 
post. Then for two years, Scott having righted this 
injustice, Grant had Detroit, to which he was en- 
titled by position, but as he had no social instincts, 
being dumb with women, awkward and shy with men, 



32 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

he got no pleasure from its tinsel gayeties. Few people 
knew that he was there. Another gloomy winter at 
Sackett's Harbor, and then in 1852 orders to gold- 
crazed California with his regiment. There was a 
baby boy, born two years earlier at White Haven, and 
a second on the way. He left his little family at 
Bethel and started on the tiresome journey to the' 
coast. 

On this trip he had a chance to show resourceful- 
ness in an emergency, his only worthy opportunity 
between Chapultepec and '61. Transportation across 
the Isthmus had broken down by reason of the rush, 
and it was unexpectedly put up to Grant as quarter- 
master, by such ingenious methods as he could devise, 
to get his expedition of eight hundred people to the 
other side. There he found cholera and a far heavier 
burden — all the details of caring for the sick, the 
burial of a hundred dead, the countless grewsome and 
mournful offices of such a plague. "Grant seemed to 
be a man of iron . . . seldom sleeping and then only 
two or three hours at a time ... he was like a min- 
istering angel to us all," writes one who knew him 
there. It is a striking thing that Grant in later years 
spoke oftener of his experience at Panama than of his 
battles in the Civil War. 

His service on the coast was at Vancouver, on the 
Columbia, and at Humboldt, two hundred miles 



AD INTERIM 33 

from San Francisco, where in due time he gained his 
captaincy. It was a dismal life. He abhorred hunt- 
ing, fishing bored him — the only recreations of his 
fellow officers; there were few books to read; he pined 
for wife and babies, one of whom he had not seen. He 
showed a letter once to an old sergeant on which his 
wife had traced the outline of his baby's hand, and 
as he put the letter back without a word his eyes 
were wet — a likely incident ; for all his life his deep- 
est sentiment was for his home. 

Like many another officer thus circumstanced, he 
drank more than he should and in his case a little was 
too much. It did not cloud his judgment or impede 
his speech, but it impaired his power of locomotion 
and he was physically helpless while his mind was 
clear. Those who knew him testify to this so uni- 
formly that it must be true; and while not of supreme 
importance it cannot be ignored. It helps explain the 
obstacles he had to overcome at the beginning of the 
war and the peculiar influence which Rawlins had so 
long as Rawlins lived. Without it we should miss an 
angle of his character which throws a dart of color for 
our better understanding of the man. We should not 
have had Lincoln's pat comment after Shiloh: "I 
can't spare this man. He fights." Or his whimsical 
remark that if he knew Grant's brand of whiskey 
he would send a barrel to his other generals. 



34 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Just why Grant quit the array has been a question 
in dispute. The reason which he gives in his own story, 
that he saw no chance of supporting wife and children 
on his pay and so concluded to resign, is no doubt 
strictly true. It is in harmony with what we know 
was his intention when he left West Point. There was 
nothing in the service, especially in time of peace, 
for which he cared, and when he left it no one could 
foresee the conflict close at hand. But there were 
circumstances not entirely pleasant which conspired 
to fix the date of his decision upon a step which had 
been long in mind. He would, of course, have liked to 
turn his military training to account in some profes- 
sion better suited to his taste, but in his exile to the 
coast that prospect disappeared, and two or three un- 
lucky business ventures taught him that he could not 
supplement his meager earnings in that way. His 
monthly pay as a lieutenant was thirty dollars, and 
besides he had for rations eighty cents a day and for 
a servant, sixty-five, with wood for fuel, a single 
room and kitchen — an income all told of seventy- 
three dollars and fifty cents a month. His monthly 
pay and allowance as captain during his last month of 
service was ninety-two dollars and fifty cents, and 
with the slowness of promotion that was all he could 
have expected for years — a dismal prospect for a 
man whose wife and babies were by the speediest 



AD INTERIM 3.5 

route eight thousand miles away. As he was near his 
captaincy he, of course, had pride in taking on the 
higher rank, but after that the sooner civil life for 
him the better. Thus it stood with him in April, 1854, 
when, having been intoxicated while paying off his 
men, he was reproved by his commanding officer, 
Major R. C. Buchanan, noted throughout the service 
as a martinet, who told him that if he did not resign 
charges would be preferred. Grant resigned. He did 
not have to, and officers who served with him have 
said that he would not have been sentenced to dis- 
missal if he had stood trial. But he was tired of 
barracks life; he had just become a captain. He was 
anxious to get East where he could be with those who 
loved him and were dependent upon him, and without 
reflecting that the incident might later prove em- 
barrassing, he wrote a letter resigning his new com- 
mission the same day he accepted it, to take effect 
July 31, 1854. By doing this he left his record clear of 
a court martial, but he could not guess that he would 
ever wear a uniform again or be of consequence 
enough to stir to life old service scandal and stimulate 
its sting. To Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, 
it fell to accept Grant's resignation. Jesse Grant was 
thriftily disturbed when he got word of it from the 
War Department. There is on file there his letter to 
Davis of June 1, protesting: "I never wished him to 



36 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

leave the servis. I think after spending so much time 
to qualify himself for the army, and spending so 
many years in the servis he will be poorly qualified 
for the pursuits of private life. . . . Would it then be 
asking too much for him to have such leave that he 
may come home and make arrangements for taking 
his family with him to his post? ... I will remark 
that he has not seen his family for over two years, 
and has a son nearly two years old he has never seen. 
I suppose in his great anxiety to see his family he has 
been ordered to quit the servis." 

In spite of his dislike for garrison routine there was 
nothing in his California life to cause especially un- 
pleasant recollections. Otherwise he never could have 
written : " I left the Pacific coast very much attached 
to it, and with full expectation of making it my future 
home. That expectation and that hope remained 
uppermost in mind until the Lieutenant-Generalcy 
bill was introduced into Congress in the winter of 
1803-64. The passage of that bill and my promotion 
blasted my last hope of ever becoming a citizen of the 
farther west." 

II. A STRUGGLE FOR A LIVING 

"When you hear from me next," he told his com- 
rades as he said good-bye, " I '11 be a farmer in Mis- 
si >iiri." That was his hope. But he was in worse 



AD INTERIM 37 

straits than he had thought. Money owing him in 
San Francisco did not materialize. A good-natured 
quartermaster clerk cashed a draft and found him 
transportation to New York. He landed strapped. 
A creditor at Sackett's Harbor failed him. If his 
classmate Buckner, who was recruiting officer, had 
not guaranteed his board at a New York hotel, he 
would have slept outdoors until his father sent him 
money to get home. There was no great joy in 
Bethel over his return. His younger brothers were 
doing fairly well in leather, but with all his West 
Point training he had not made good. Jesse, who had 
been so proud of him, could hardly think of him with- 
out a shade of shame. He went on to his wife and 
babies at White Haven and settled on an unbroken 
tract of eighty acres which Colonel Dent had turned 
over to his wife for a wedding present six years be- 
fore. He cleared it, built him a log cabin out of trees 
he felled and hewed himself, and with grim humor 
called the new estate " Hard Scrabble." He worked 
hard for a living, peddled grain and cordwood in St. 
Louis for ready money, grubbed stumps, bought 
hogs at sales, and did the things a farmer must. He 
was more thrifty than his neighbors and showed more 
ingenuity. While they were burning wood for fuel 
he sold his at good prices to the coal mines near by 
for use as timber props, and used for fuel the less ex- 



38 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

pensive coal. Chills and fever hit him. He gave up 
farming, swapped his place for a little frame house in 
St. Louis, and tried his hand at real estate, combin- 
ing with a cousin of his wife named Boggs who had 
desk-room in a lawyer's office. Money was slow after 
the panic of 1857. lie was too soft-hearted to col- 
lect rents from hard-pressed tenants. There was not 
business enough for two. He applied to the County 
Commissioners for appointment as County Engineer, 
the salary of which was nineteen hundred dollars ; but 
they gave it to another applicant. There were five 
commissioners, two of whom were Democrats and 
three Free-Soilers, and the selection was made on 
party lines. His father-in-law was a slaveholder, 
strongly Southern in his sympathies, and Grant had 
no particular political affiliations. "You may judge 
from the result of the action of the County Com- 
missioners," he wrote his father on September 23, 
1859, "that I am strongly identified with the Dem- 
ocratic party. Such is not the case. I never voted 
an out-and-out Democratic ticket in my life. I 
voted for Buchanan for President to defeat Fremont, 
but not because he was my first choice. In all other 
elections I have universally selected the candidates 
that, in my estimation, were the best fitted for the 
different offices, and it never happens that such men 
arc all arrayed on one side." 

1 Letters of Ulysses S. Grant, p. 20. 



AD INTERIM 39 

He had a place as clerk in the Custom-House for a 
month, but the collector died and he was hard put to 
it. "I do not want to fly from one thing to another, 
nor would I," he wrote his father; "but I am com- 
pelled to make a living from the start, for which I am 
willing to give all my time and all my energy." His 
father had prospered. He was worth $100,000, it is 
said, a sizable fortune for that day. He had estab- 
lished his tannery in Covington, Kentucky, where 
he now lived and he had also bought a wholesale 
leather business in Galena, Illinois, which was in 
charge of Simpson and Orvil, his two younger sons. 
Ulysses, much against his will, acknowledging at last 
his failure in farming and real estate, turned to Jesse 
for advice and help. Jesse referred him to Simpson, 
and Simpson sent him to the Galena store, "to stay 
until something better should turn up." The house 
bought leather and sold shoe findings, saddlery, 
fancy linings, and morocco. Ulysses served as clerk 
because he was good at figures; the other brothers did 
the bargaining for which he was not fit. He was al- 
lowed eight hundred dollars salary, and drew seven 
hundred more to settle obligations in St. Louis, a 
sum which he paid back afterwards. He had a com- 
fortable little house, attended the Methodist church, 
wore an old blue army coat which he had bought on 
the Pacific Coast, traveled to Iowa and Wisconsin 



40 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

once to buy hides, and was becoming gradually set- 
tled to his environment, although few people knew 
him even by sight. " In my new employment I have 
become pretty conversant," he wrote a friend in 
December, 1860, "and am much pleased with it. I 
hope to be a partner pretty soon, and am sanguine 
that a competency at least can be made out of the 
business." 

And then came Sumter and the call for troops. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE AWAKENING 

How, when the North sprang to Lincoln's call, the 
men of Galena found among themselves the un- 
assuming captain with his shabby army coat, singled 
him out because he had seen service, putting him in 
the chair at their war meeting, offering him the cap- 
taincy of their company which he declined, asking 
him to form and drill them and see that they were 
suitably equipped, and how when they marched to 
the station through flags and cheers, he stood in the 
crowd and watched them pass, trailing along with his 
old carpetbag, following them to Springfield, to be of 
service if he might, has been recited many times. But 
this is not all the story. For months Grant's mind 
had been in process of slow fermentation. All through 
the pregnant winter filled with secession talk, he was 
observing the approach to war. " It is hard to realize," 
he wrote in December, "that a State or States should 
commit so suicidal an act as to secede from the Union, 
though from all reports I have no doubt but five of 
them will do it. And then, with the present granny of 
an executive, some foolish policy will doubtless be 
pursued which will give the seceding States the sup- 



42 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

port and sympathy of the Southern States that don't 
go out." 

To Rowley, who said in February, "There's a 
great deal of bluster about these Southerners, but I 
don't think there's much fight in them," ho replied 
earnestly, " You are mistaken, ... if they ever get at 
it they will make a strong fight. . . . Each side under- 
estimates the other and overestimates itself." Seven 
days after Sumter he was writing to his Democratic, 
slaveholding father-in-law: "Now is the time, par- 
ticularly in the border slave States, for men to prove 
their love of country. I know it is hard for men to 
apparently work with the Republican party, but now 
all party distinctions should be lost sight of and every 
true patriot be for maintaining the integrity of the 
glorious old Stars and Stripes, the Constitution and 
the Union. No impartial man can conceal from him- 
self the fact that in all these troubles the South have 
been the aggressors and the Administration has stood 
purely on the defensive, more on the defensive than 
she would have dared to have done but for her con- 
sciousness of strength and the certainty of right pre- 
vailing in the end. ... In all this I can but see the 
doom of slavery. The North do not want, nor will 
they want, to interfere with the institution. But 
they will refuse for all time to give it protection un- 
less the South shall return soon to their allegiance." 



THE AWAKENING 43 

To his abolition father, two days later, his words 
were dutiful, as befitting filial and financial depend- 
ence, but clear: " We are now in the midst of trying 
times when every one must be for or against his 
country, and show his colors too by his every act. 
Having been educated for such an emergency, at the 
expense of the Government, I feel that it has upon me 
superior claims, such claims as no ordinary motives 
of self-interest can surmount. I do not wish to act 
hastily or inadvisably in the matter, and as there are 
more than enough to respond to the first call of the 
President, I have not yet offered myself. I have 
promised, and am giving all the assistance I can in 
organizing the company whose services have been 
accepted from this place. I have promised further to 
go with them to the State Capital, and if I can be of 
service to the Governor in organizing his state troops 
to do so. What I ask now is your approval of the 
course I am taking or your advice in the matter. . . . 
There are but two parties now, traitors and patriots, 
and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter, and, 
I trust, the stronger party." 

To his sister: "The conduct of eastern Virginia has 
been so abominable through the whole contest that 
there would be a great deal of disappointment here if 
matters should be settled before she is thoroughly 
punished. This is my feeling and I believe it uni- 



44 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

versal. Great allowance should be made for South 
Carolinians; for the last generation have been edu- 
cated from their infancy to look upon their govern- 
ment as oppressive and tyrannical and only to be 
endured till such time as they might have sufficient 
strength to strike it down. Virginia and other border 
States have no such excuse, and are therefore 
traitors at heart as well as in act." 






CHAPTER V 
CALLED TO THE COLORS 

Grant understood the sober side of war, and so at 
Springfield in the brood of patriots chirping for recog- 
nition he did not push his way. He was not eager for 
spectacular distinction after the way of politicians 
hunting for a rostrum to address the pyramids, con- 
fusing oratory with a genius for command. He was 
indifferent to gold lace and epaulettes — just a plain 
soldier who had not done well in civil life and thought 
he saw a chance to work again at the one trade he 
knew. The city was a scene of cheap confusion. 
Richard Yates, the governor, eager and keen of wit in 
politics, was struggling blindly in a flood of strange 
emergencies. Every man of consequence in Illinois 
was pressing for commissions for himself or for his 
friends. Companies of volunteers were pouring in, 
undrilled, unskilled, ununiformed, unarmed, hardly a 
musket to a dozen men; regiments of raw-boned boys 
and awkward squads, officered by village Cromwells 
and country-store Turennes, — among them soldiers 
to the core like Logan, — soon to comprise the 
nucleus of the hardiest veteran army the world had 
ever seen. 

Of all of the companies one of the best came from 



46 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Galena, hastily drilled and uniformed by Quarter- 
master-Captain Grant, who now, neglected in the 
crowd and having done his duty by his local volun- 
teers, was on the point of leaving Springfield, when 
Yates, perceiving that his military training might be 
utilized, found him a corner in a dingy closet, which 
served the adjutant-general as an office, and let him 
spend his time in filling blanks for orders — the 
sort of thing a boy might do after once having caught 
the trick. 

"My old army experience I found indeed of great 
service," Grant wrote after twenty years. "I was no 
clerk, nor had I any capacity to become one. . . . But 
I had been quartermaster, commissary, and adjutant 
in the field. The army forms were familiar to me and 
I could direct how they should be made out!" So he 
stuck to his simple task, — looked up old muskets in 
the arsenal, made reports, answered questions about 
regulations, showed such familiarity with military 
things that he was made drill-master at outlying 
camps, and was so quietly effective that Yates made 
him "mustering officer and aide," calling him 
"colonel" and paying him three dollars a day. It is a 
.singularity of Grant's career that he never asked for 
an appointment or promotion which he obtained and 
that he never shirked a job no matter whether mean 
or great which came his way. 






CALLED TO THE COLORS 47 

So numerous and eager were volunteers that the 
Legislature provided for additional regiments. It was 
some of these that Grant was set to muster in, and 
when that should be done, he wrote his father three 
weeks after Lincoln's call, "I presume my services 
may end. I might have obtained the colonelcy of a 
regiment possibly, but I was perfectly sickened at the 
political wire-pulling for all these commissions, and 
would not engage in it. I shall be in no ways back- 
ward in offering my services when and where they are 
required, but I feel that I have done more now than I 
could do serving as a captain under a green colonel, 
and if this thing continues they will want more men 
at a later day. I can go back to Galena and drill the 
three or four companies there and render them 
efficient for any future call. My own opinion is that 
this war will be but of short duration." 

A few days in St. Louis, while mustering in a 
slowly gathering regiment, just as Francis P. Blair 
and Nathaniel Lyon were cleaning up Camp Jackson 
which the secession Governor Claiborne Jackson had 
established on the outskirts with a view to seizing the 
city and the Federal arsenal. He saw the rebel flag 
hauled down from the secession headquarters, and he 
recites how, when a spruce young fellow in a street 
car turned to him to say, "Things have come to a 
pretty pass when a free people can't choose their own 



48 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

flag; where I came from, if a man dares to say a word 
in favor of the Union we hang him to the first tree 
we come to," he replied, "After all, we are not as 
intolerant in St. Louis as we might be; I have not seen 
a single rebel hung yet nor heard of one; there are 
plenty of them who ought to be, however." 

His work at mustering in was quickly over. 
Brigadier-General John Pope, a native of the State 
stationed at Springfield as Federal mustering officer, 
whom he had known at West Point and in Mexico, 
offered to get him recommended for appointment to 
the Federal service; but Grant, who was a carpet- 
bagger and had no influential friends to push him, 
would have none of it. " I declined to receive endorse- 
ment for permission to fight for my country." 

So back to Galena for a week, where he was filled 
with restlessness. "During the six days I have been 
at home," he writes, "I have felt all the time as if a 
duty were being neglected that was paramount to any 
other duty I ever owed. I have every reason to be 
well satisfied with myself for the services already 
rendered, but to stop now would not do." 

During this visit he wrote the Adjutant-General of 
the Army tendering his services and offering the only 
suggestion he ever made about his rank: "Having 
served for fifteen years in the regular army, including 
four years at West Point, and feeling it the duty of 



CALLED TO THE COLORS 49 

every one who has been educated at the government 
expense to offer their services for the support of the 
Government, I have the honor, very respectfully, to 
tender my services until the close of the war in such 
capacity as may be offered. I would say, in view of 
my present age and length of service, I feel myself 
competent to command a regiment if the President, 
in his judgment, should see fit to entrust one to me. 
Since the first call of the President, I have been serv- 
ing on the staff of the Governor of this State, render- 
ing such aid as I could in the organization of our 
state militia, and am still engaged in that capacity. 
A letter addressed to me at Springfield, Illinois, will 
reach me." No letter ever came. The application 
was buried among department papers and the Adju- 
tant-General never saw it till long after the war was 
over. 

But other avenues of service opened to the diffident 
soldier, who later wrote: "I had felt some hesitation 
in suggesting rank as high as the colonelcy of a regi- 
ment, feeling somewhat doubtful whether I would be 
equal to the position. But I had seen nearly every 
colonel who had been mustered in from the State of 
Illinois, and some from Indiana, and felt that if they 
could command a regiment properly and with credit, 
I could also." 

Yates would have recommended his appointment 



50 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

as a brigadier, but he declined; said he did n't want 
rank till he had earned it. " What kind of a man is 
this Captain Grant?" Yates asked a bookkeeper 
from the Galena store; "though anxious to serve he 
seems reluctant to take any high position. . . . What 
does he want?" "The way to deal with him," was 
the reply, "is to ask him no questions, but simply 
order him to duty. He will obey promptly." Where- 
upon Yates wired Grant, then visiting his father at 
Covington: "You are this day appointed Colonel of 
the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers and requested to 
take command at once." His commission was dated 
June 16, 1861. 



CHAPTER VI 
IN COMMAND 

Grant had been set, a month before, to muster in the 
regiment now put under his command, a raw and 
ragged lot of country boys, camped near Mattoon, 
their former colonel, chosen by themselves by reason 
of his warlike aspect, a former Costa Rican filibuster 
with a propensity for bowie knives and whiskey, and 
a way of making daily harangues to his helpless 
men, dragging his sentries sometimes from their 
posts for nightly orgies. When it came to serving 
under him in war, the officers objected, and remem- 
bering the quietly effective soldier who had taught 
them how to drill they asked the Governor to give 
them Grant. That was how Grant came by his first 
regiment. 

The new commander had no uniform, although he 
bought one later with three hundred dollars which he 
borrowed from a friend. His rusty clothes and stoop- 
ing shoulders contrasted queerly with the military 
strut of some of the militia colonels. He tells how, 
when he went to take command, Logan and Mc- 
Clernand, two Democratic Congressmen, both later 
to be generals of volunteers, went with him to inspire 



52 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the backward regiment with military fervor; and he 
relates how Logan's speech aroused his men to such 
a pitch that " they would have volunteered to remain 
in the army as long as an enemy of the country con- 
tinued to bear arms against it." But he neglects to 
say that after the first burst of oratory, when Mc- 
Clernand presented him as the new colonel, and the 
men, looking for another thrill, called out, "Grant! 
Grant!" he simply said, "Go to your quarters," in 
the clear, carrying, inevitable voice which years be- 
fore had caught the ears of loiterers on the Bethel 
Green and which would soon have its incisive way on 
more tumultuous fields. Nor does he tell how his new 
regiment, for the first time catching the inflection 
of control, went to their quarters silently, under the 
unaccustomed spell. 

He drilled and disciplined them for a month. Or- 
dered to the Missouri line, where secession was still 
struggling for the border State, he marched his men 
across the country, so as to teach them how, instead 
of waiting for a train. 

His six weeks in Missouri gave him no chance for 
much of anything, but to his father he confides 
that his services with the regiment have been 
"highly satisfactory to me. I took it in a very 
disorganized, demoralized, and insubordinate condi- 
tion and have worked it up to a reputation equal to 



IN COMMAND 53 

the best, and, I believe, with the good-will of all the 
officers and all the men. Hearing that I was likely to 
be promoted, the officers with great unanimity have 
requested to be attached to my command. This I 
don't want you to read to others, for I very much dis- 
like speaking of myself," — a disagreeable restraint 
for Jesse, whose paternal pride was just beginning 
to revive. 

An incident illuminating in the naivete with which 
he tells it : At Mexico, Missouri, where he encamped 
for several weeks, he had his earliest opportunity to 
exercise his regiment in battalion drill. "I had never 
looked at a copy of tactics from the time of my grad- 
uation . . . had not been at a battalion drill since 1846. 
The arms had been changed and Hardee's tactics had 
been adopted. I got a copy of tactics and studied one 
lesson, intending to confine the exercise of the first 
day to the commands I thus learned. I do not be- 
lieve that the officers of the regiment ever discovered 
that I had never studied the tactics that I used," — 
an instance, slight it may be, of the saving common 
sense which served him all his life for genius. "I 
never maneuver," he said to Meade before the battle 
of the Wilderness. "My only points of doubt were 
as to your knowledge of sound strategy and of books 
of science and history," Sherman wrote him in a 
memorable letter, "but I confess your common sense 



54 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

seems to have supplied all this." And after he had 
gained his fame he said to a young officer, who would 
have talked to him of Jomini, that he had never paid 
much attention to that authority on military strat- 
egy. "The art of war is simple enough. Find out 
where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. 
Strike at him as hard as you can, and keep moving 
on." 

In his meager library there were no books on war, 
and he never seemed to care about the strategy of the 
great generals of history. To him the Civil ^Yar with 
every campaign in it was a problem by itself. His 
only purpose was to wrest success out of conditions 
placed before him, with such weapons as were nearest 
to his hand. The game of war had no attraction for 
him. "You ask if I should not like to go in the regu- 
lar army," he writes his father, just after being made 
a colonel. "I should not. I want to bring my chil- 
dren up to useful employment and in the army the 
chance is poor." 

Another story helps to explain a trait which was 
of service to him through his life. The first serious 
task to which his regiment was put was to dis- 
perse a band of troops under a guerrilla officer who 
had become a terror in that part of the State. "As 
we approached the brow of the hill from which it was 
expected we could see Harris's camp and possibly 



IN COMMAND 55 

find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept 
getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though 
it was in my throat. I would have given anything 
then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the 
moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept 
right on. When we reached a point from which the 
valley was in full view I halted. The place where 
Harris had been encamped a few days before was 
still there, and the marks of a recent encampment 
were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My 
heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once 
that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had 
been of him. This was a view of the question I had 
never taken before, but it was one I never forgot 
afterwards. From that event until the close of the 
war I never experienced trepidation upon confront- 
ing an enemy, though I always felt more or less 
anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much rea- 
son to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was val- 
uable." 

It was his first experience in independent and re- 
sponsible command — and so, according to his own 
interpretation, he was dubious of the result. Like 
Grant's other lessons, this was one which he had to 
learn only once. He never was concerned about the 
opposition; considered only what he had to do him- 
self. "When I go into battle," Sherman said years 



56 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

later, "I am always worrying about what the enemy 

is going to do. Grant never gives a damn ! " 1 

1 General James II. Wilson says that just before the march to 
the sea, Sherman said to him: "Wilson, I am a damned sight 
smarter man than Grant; I know a great deal more about war, 
military history, strategy, and grand tactics than he does; I know 
more about organization, supply, and administration, and about 
everything else than he does; but I '11 tell you where he beats me, 
and where he beats the world. He don't care a damn for what 
the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell!" 
(Under the Old Flag, vol. n, p. 17.) 






CHAPTER VII 
BRIGADIER-GENERAL 

John C. Fremont, the "Pathfinder," major-general 
by reason of a reputation picturesquely gained, a 
dashing figure, futile in command, yet idolized be- 
yond all other Northern men at the beginning of the 
war, was at the head of the Department of the West 
including Illinois, Kentucky, Kansas, and Missouri, 
with quarters at St. Louis, — which held the key to 
the strategical control of the Confederacy, — the wa- 
ters joining there within a radius of a hundred miles 
to form the great flow of the Mississippi, the sole effec- 
tive channels for transportation of supplies and troops. 
McClellan was at Cincinnati. Scott was general-in- 
chief at Washington and under him the regulars, 
McDowell, Meigs, and Rosecrans. Grant under Fre- 
mont, who had a scant conception of the strategical 
importance of his own command, was ordered from 
one place to another in Missouri, knocking his regi- 
ment into shape, doing police duty at Ironton, Jef- 
ferson City, and Mexico, establishing order here and 
there; for Claiborne Jackson's State was desultory 
fighting ground by reason of the close division of the 
population between the sympathizers with the North 



58 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and South. Without formality and by consent, be- 
cause he was the only educated soldier in the lot of 
recently created colonels, he found himself com- 
mander of an improvised brigade, and then one day 
in early August, 1861, his chaplain showed him a 
news paragraph that Lincoln had appointed him a 
brigadier. "It must be some of Washburne's work," 
he said. 

Elihu B. Washburne, a "down East" Yankee, 
transplanted early to the West, had been the Con- 
gressman from the Galena District since 1852, one of 
the very earliest Free-Soilers or Republicans to get 
office, so that when his party gained control, with 
Lincoln at the head, he was a factor to be reckoned 
with. Shrewd, forceful, rangy, a fair type of the un- 
cultured politician of his time, serving the public 
many years in Congress and as Minister to France, 
he is known chiefly now because Grant was his un- 
known neighbor at Galena when Lincoln called for 
troops. He saw Grant handle the Galena company, 
talked with him about the war and found him full of 
sense, gave him a note to Yates and kept an eye on 
him when he became a colonel. His unsought friend- 
ship was the nearest thing to "influence" Grant ever 
had, and Grant was right in guessing that the ap- 
pointment was "some of Washburne's work." 

When Congress met in August and Lincoln had to 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL 59 

send in names of officers for the new army, he gave 
his own State four brigadiers and asked the delega- 
tion in Washington to meet and designate the men. 
Grant named by Washburne topped the list, receiv- 
ing every vote. The others named were Hurlbut, 
Prentiss, and McClernand in the order given; none 
of whom had a West Point training. Lincoln sent in 
these names on August 7, together with thirty-three 
other brigadiers, among whom Grant was number 
seventeen. Ranking him were Hunter, Heintzelman, 
Keyes, Fitz-John Porter, Franklin, Sherman, Stone, 
Buell, Lyon, Pope, Kearny, and Hooker. The major- 
generals were Scott, McClellan, Fremont, McDowell, 
and Halleck, regulars, with Dix, Banks, and Butler, 
volunteers. 

Thus at the outset of the war Grant was brigadier, 
unsponsored it is true, and guiltless of prestige, but 
placed without his own design with a detached com- 
mand at the one key by touching which the forces 
could be set in motion to surround and crush the 
armies of the South. 

Others saw the military value of commanding 
rivers near the junction of the Ohio and the Missis- 
sippi as a first step toward controlling the Mississippi 
to its mouth. Grant was the only one to see the ab- 
solute necessity of doing it at once with just the im- 
plements in hand. To him must go the credit of 



60 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

achieving what the rest only dreamed. He trans- 
lated into terms of conquest the cry which sounded 
through the armies of the West: "The Rebels have 
closed the Mississippi; we must cut our way to the 
Gulf with our swords!" 



CHAPTER VIII 

PADUCAH, BELMONT 

General Leonidas Polk, the fighting Bishop, com- 
manded the Confederate forces thereabout. Work- 
ing in harmony with a comprehensive military plan 
evolved by the trained soldiers of the South, some- 
thing then lacking in the North, he had set out to 
gain Kentucky, a border State still split in sympathy 
between secession and the Union. His eye was fixed 
on Cairo, at the southern tip of Illinois, where the 
Ohio joins the Mississippi, a vantage-point of contact 
with three border States, and with that end in view 
he seized Columbus, twenty miles below, on the east 
bank of the Mississippi just above the boundary line 
between Kentucky and Tennessee. On that very day, 
September 4, as soon as he could do a task at which 
Fremont had set him in Missouri, Grant pitched his 
tent at Cairo. 

When he learned that Polk was sending troops to 
seize Paducah, forty-five miles up the Ohio at the 
mouth of the Tennessee, — to hold which meant the 
locking of those rivers as the Mississippi was already 
locked, • — Grant wired Fremont that he would start 
that night for Paducah if he received no orders to 



62 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the contrary, manned his boats, and hearing nothing 
from headquarters was on his way, seizing the town at 
daybreak of September 6, anticipating by a few hours 
Polk's troops which Paducah had hoped to welcome. 
To reassure the frightened citizens he issued a short 
proclamation: — 

I have come among you, not as an enemy, but as your 
friend and fellow citizen, not to injure or annoy you, but to 
respect the rights and to defend and enforce the rights of all 
loyal citizens. An enemy, in rebellion against a common 
government, has taken possession of and planted its guns 
upon the soil of Kentucky and fired upon your flag. 
Hickman and Columbus are in his hands. He is moving 
upon your city. I am here to defend you against this enemy 
and to assert and maintain the authority and sovereignty 
of your government and mine. I have nothing to do with 
opinions. I shall deal only with armed rebellion and its 
aiders and abettors. You can pursue your usual avocations 
without fear or hindrance. The strong arm of the govern- 
ment is here to protect its friends, and to punish only its 
enemies. Whenever it is manifest that you are able to 
defend yourselves, to maintain the authority of your gov- 
ernment, and protect the rights of all its loyal citizens, I 
shall withdraw the forces under my command from your 
city. 

He left troops at Paducah under General Charles 
F. Smith, his old commander at West Point and noti- 
fied the Kentucky Legislature, then playing with 
"neutrality" at the state capital. The Legislature 
promptly adopted resolutions favorable to the Union 
and the State was saved; on his return to Cairo he 



PADUCAH, BELMONT 63 

found Fremont's authority to take Paducah "if he 
felt strong enough," a reprimand for corresponding 
with the Legislature, and a warning against doing 
it again. 

He could have seized Columbus then and wanted 
to, but Fremont kept him for two months at Cairo, 
and by November Polk was so intrenched that he was 
strong enough to hold his own against a siege and to 
assist the rebel forces in Missouri stirring trouble un- 
der Generals Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price. Be- 
sides, by Fremont's order Grant had sent three thou- 
sand men under Dick Oglesby to chase guerrillas 
in Missouri and Oglesby must be protected in the 
rear. 

It was to keep Polk engaged at home that Grant 
sailed down the river, on November 7, with three 
thousand men to reconnoiter at a little camp of shan- 
ties just opposite Columbus bearing the pretentious 
name of Belmont, where Polk had put twenty-five 
hundred men who, resting under the protection of his 
batteries, were ready for quick expeditions. Instead 
of simply reconnoitering, Grant, sensing what Polk 
had in mind, landed with his troops, dispersed the 
enemy, and seized the camp — his first real fighting 
for the war. He would have demanded the surrender 
of the beaten forces and withdrawn, his task com- 
pleted, had not his green troops, their heads turned by 



64 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

what seemed a striking victory, become a jubilant 
mob, ransacking the camp for souvenirs, reddening 
the day with speeches, cheers, and songs, and uncon- 
trollable till Grant, with genius born of common 
sense, set matches to the tents, the flames from which 
invited fire from the Columbus batteries and rein- 
forcements from the fort, giving the enemy a chance 
to rally. His men, surrounded and attacked, were 
ready now for orders, but they would have sur- 
rendered had not Grant, saying grimly that they had 
cut their way in and could cut their way out, forced 
them fighting to the boats, he with a private's blouse, 
his horse shot under him, embarking last of all and 
nearly left behind. 

McClernand, soldier politician, who was there with 
Grant, issued a vainglorious address to his command 
on his return to Cairo. But Grant said nothing save 
to his father, to whom he wrote next day: "Tak- 
ing into account the object of the expedition the 
victory was most complete. It has given me a confi- 
dence in the officers and men of this command that 
will enable me to lead them in any future engagement 
without fear of the result." The newspapers of 
Illinois were filled with tales of how McClernand 
saved the day. Grant let him have his little glory with 
the folks at home and would not enter on a contro- 
versy. It was a local rivalry at best, for neither gen- 




GRANT. AS A BRIGADIER-GENERAL 

November, 1861 
From the colli ction «' h'l • rf< i ick lltll Meservi 



PADUCAH, BELMONT 65 

eral was known outside the State, and news of Bel- 
mont did not excite the East. 

The country's gloomy face was turned toward the 
Potomac and the James, waiting for victories to wipe 
out Bull Run, while McClellan at the head of his 
great army was wearing out its patience marching up 
and down. Belmont with its loss of life was criticized 
for years as an unnecessary fight. It was not intended 
for a battle, but a demonstration. If Belmont had not 
been fought, said Grant years later, "Colonel Oglesby 
would probably have been captured or destroyed 
with his three thousand men. Then I should have 
been culpable indeed." 

Besides, we should have missed an episode unique 
and picturesque, illustrating the peculiar temper of 
the time. 



CHAPTER IX 
DOXELSON 

Thirteen more weeks of waiting, not altogether 
wasted because the time was used in drilling troops at 
Cairo and teaching officers the ways of war. 

There were few regulars in Grant's command. 
The South had scattered its West Point graduates 
throughout its service, so that the volunteers had 
the advantage of instruction by trained officers. The 
educated soldiers of the North had kept their old 
commands and rank until the war had lasted many 
months, and while there was one whole "regular 
brigade" in the Army of the Potomac, in which every 
officer, from general to second lieutenant, had been 
educated in his profession, there were elsewhere 
entire divisions serving under commanders who had 
had no military training. Grant, face to face with 
such conditions, suggested while at Cairo that, 
except for the staff corps, the regular army should be 
disbanded and the officers detailed to lead and drill 
the volunteers, a condition brought about through 
natural process as the war progressed. 

Grant was not alone in trouble with Fremont. 
Lincoln was having difficulty too. The more Fre- 



DONELSON 67 

mont displayed his pompous incapacity, the harder 
for his chief to handle him, and he was bright enough 
to play spectacularly upon the anti-slavery senti- 
ment, which looked upon him as the champion of the 
negro's cause, while those above him would subordi- 
nate it if thereby the Union might be saved. On 
August 30 came the final test of patience. In that 
morning's paper Lincoln was amazed to read a procla- 
mation issued by Fremont confiscating the property 
of all persons in Missouri who had taken active part 
with the enemies of the United States, and declaring 
free their slaves, — a proclamation hailed with joy 
throughout the North, but with dismay by the Ad- 
ministration, which knew that Kentucky and the 
other border States would not hold to the Union if 
they thought their slaves were to be free. 

To Lincoln Fremont's proclamation meant defi- 
ance and a usurpation of legislative power, but 
patiently he asked Fremont to modify it; at Fre- 
mont's request issued himself the modifying order, 
and brought down on his head the North's denuncia- 
tion with threatenings of impeachment. Some would 
have made Fremont dictator. "How many times," 
wrote James Russell Lowell, "are we to save Ken- 
tucky and lose our self-respect? " Such was the spirit 
Lincoln faced in the first months of war. In view of 
the part politics so largely played in the conduct 



68 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of the war, only incorrigible ineptitude could have 
elicited the order issued two days after Belmont, 
putting Halleck in Fremont's place. 

To Grant the substitution was of little benefit. 
Halleck, an educated West Point soldier, of great 
learning, a master of the technique of war, — "Old 
Brains" they called him, — had been for years a 
San Francisco lawyer, having seen service in Mexico. 
He had just been made a major-general of volunteers, 
and great things were expected of him. He was a 
pundit, not a fighter; his big head stuffed with 
strategy, but not alive with wit. He had no aptitude 
for such emergencies as now confronted him in an 
unusual kind of war. He never learned what Gibbon 
had in mind when he declared a century before that 
"the great battles won by the lessons of tactics may 
be enumerated by the epic poems composed from the 
inspirations of rhetoric." To Halleck, Grant, with 
his plain, practical ideas, was a specimen unclassified, 
and besides, there was a lurking memory of the way 
Grant quit the service on the coast. 

Grant, left to vegetate at Cairo, weary of inaction, 
at last sought Halleck out. He had a scheme for 
opening a roadway through the South and pushing 
back the first line of defense, which Smith, his old 
West Point preceptor, had approved, to his great 
satisfaction, and he thought it merited consideration 



DONELSON 69 

higher up. But having grudgingly been granted leave 
to visit Halleck, he met scant courtesy. "I was 
received with so little cordiality that I perhaps stated 
the object of my visit with less clearness than I might 
have done, and I had not uttered many sentences 
before I was cut short as if my plan was preposterous. 
I returned to Cairo very much crestfallen." 

The "preposterous" plan was this: Albert Sidney 
Johnston, in chief command west of the Alleghanies, 
had established the outward defensive line of the 
Confederacy in southern Kentucky stretching from 
Columbus on the Mississippi to the Cumberland Gap 
in eastern Tennessee. Along this line strongholds had 
been set up at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson com- 
manding respectively the Tennessee and Cumber- 
land just where those rivers, coming toward each 
other in the State of Tennessee, begin running par- 
allel through Kentucky to the Ohio. The two forts 
were only twelve miles apart. Other outposts were 
at Bowling Green, ninety miles northeast of Donel- 
son, and at Mill Springs, a hundred miles still farther 
east, guarding the approach to the Cumberland 
Mountains. Buckner was Confederate commander at 
Bowling Green, Zollicoffer at Mill Springs. Thomas 
watching Mill Springs commanded the Union left, 
Buell at Louisville watching Bowling Green, the 
Union center; Grant was in command at Cairo on 



70 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the Union right; while Polk was at Columbus and 
Gideon J. Pillow at Donelson — Pillow, whom Grant 
had known in Mexico, of whom, while still a han- 
ger-on at Springfield, he had written with contempt 
that, as "he would find it necessary to receive a 
wound on the first discharge of firearms, he would 
not be a formidable enemy." 

The weak point of the Confederate line was the dis- 
trict including Donelson and Henry, where those two 
forts alone held back the Federal navy from running 
up the Cumberland and Tennessee as far as Nash- 
ville and Savannah and beyond. General Charles 
F. Smith, at Paducah, under Grant, commanded the 
little district at the mouth of these two rivers, and 
Grant's plan after conference with him and Foote, 
commander of our queer little fleet, was to sail up the 
river, seize Fort Henry, and so indent the South's line 
of defense — forcing the Union front southward to 
Alabama. Sherman and Buell had thought of this, 
and spoke of it to Halleck: McClellan, in command at 
Washington, believed in it on paper, but with his 
passion for delay thought eastern Tennessee should 
first be occupied. 

"There has been much discussion as to who origi- 
nated the movement up the Tennessee River," writes 
Colonel William Preston Johnston, in his biography 
of his father. "Grant made it, and it made Grant." 



DONELSON 71 

And Grant himself wrote Washburne, within a month 
of the event : " I see the credit of attacking the enemy 
by the way of the Tennessee and Cumberland is vari- 
ously attributed. It is little to talk about it being the 
great wisdom of any general that first brought forth 
this line of attack. Our gunboats were running up the 
Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers all fall and winter 
watching the progress of the rebels on these waters. 
General Halleck no doubt thought of this route long 
ago, and I am sure I did." But Halleck thought he 
needed sixty thousand men to carry out whatever 
dilatory scheme he had in mind, three times as many 
as there were with Grant, and if an army big enough 
for Halleck had been handy, he would rather not have 
picked Grant for the job. 

Thomas, in middle January, 1862, took Mill 
Springs, a rare little victory which gave the North 
new heart, quite out of keeping with its real signifi- 
cance, and Grant grew more impatient to try out his 
plan. He wired to Halleck, Foote cooperating, that 
"if permitted" he could take and hold Fort Henry; 
and on the 1st of February he was given leave to move. 
He started the next day, and on the morning of the 
6th the fort surrendered, guns abandoned, garrison in 
full retreat to Donelson. "Fort Henry is ours," he 
wired to Halleck; " the gunboats silenced the batteries 
before the investment was completed." Then, with- 



72 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

out orders or permission, for Halleck, thinking Grant 
would stay at Henry and intrench it, had never men- 
tioned Donelson to him, he set out for the Cumber- 
land at once, wiring Halleck, "I shall take and destroy 
Fort Donelson on the 8th and return to Fort Henry." 
His fifteen thousand men that day, he felt, could do 
more service than three times the number a month 
hence against a strengthened garrison. 

John B. Floyd, Buchanan's traitorous War Secre- 
tary, who the preceding winter had depleted Northern 
arsenals to strengthen Southern forts, had just been 
sent by Johnston to command at Donelson; Pillow 
was under him; Grant knew both, and he was not 
afraid. It was a cruel week in February, warm by 
day, then overnight quick snow and sleet, with 
mercury not far from zero; the Union forces without 
shelter and inadequately clothed. But Grant with 
his inferior force invested Donelson, the garrison ap- 
parently asleep till on the 15th Floyd and Pillow led 
out their men. There was a desperate battle, the 
Union forces beaten back till Grant, who on a gun- 
boat had been counseling with Foote, rode on the 
field. His men, discouraged, told him the enemy had 
come out with haversacks and knapsacks as evidence 
that they were prepared to fight for several days. 
But he was imperturbable. Examining a haversack 
he found it filled with three days' rations; supplies 



DONELSON 73 

for flight. He realized at once that the despairing 
garrison, in order to avoid surrender, were cutting 
their way out. "They have no idea of staying here 
to fight us," he said; "whichever side attacks first 
now will win." Convinced of this, he turned his 
troops against the fort, Smith, Wallace, and Mc- 
Clernand fighting splendidly. 

Smith with his men swept up the ridge and seized 
the rifle-pits; the Southerners were driven back into 
the fort where that night was enacted a curious, dis- 
creditable scene. Pillow and Floyd, with Buckner, 
who was there with reinforcements, decided at a 
council that their force must be surrendered. Floyd, 
under indictment at Washington for embezzling 
public funds, was obsessed with the belief that if the 
Yankees captured him, he would be hanged for trea- 
son, and the vain Pillow likewise thought the Yankees 
eager for his head. They begged Buckner, one of the 
bravest soldiers of the South, to take command, and 
under cover of the night fled down the Cumberland 
to Nashville, leaving Buckner to receive the enemy 
as best he could. 

So Buckner sent his flag of truce asking for terms 
and for an armistice, and Grant sent back the mes- 
sage which electrified the North, " No terms except an 
unconditional and immediate surrender can be ac- 
cepted. I propose to move immediately upon your 



7-i ULYSSES S. GRANT 

works"; bringing the prompt response, "The dis- 
tribution of the forces under my command, incident 
to an unexpected change of commanders, compel me, 
notwithstanding the brilliant success of the Confed- 
erate arms yesterday, to accept the ungenerous and 
unchivalrous terms which you propose." 

Grant saw Buckner now for the first time since 
Buckner had helped him in New York when penni- 
less, eight years before. " He said to me that if he had 
been in command I would not have got up to Donel- 
son as easily as I did. I told him that if he had been 
in command I should not have tried in the way I 
did." Grant does not relate an incident, which comes 
with better grace from Buckner's lips: "He left the 
officers of his own army and followed me with that 
modest manner peculiar to himself into the shadow, 
and there tendered me his purse. ... In the modesty 
of his nature he was afraid the light would witness 
that act of generosity, and sought to hide it from 
the world." 

There is a passage in the "Memoirs" which from 
every aspect does human nature credit: "General 
Sherman had been sent to Smithland, at the mouth 
of the Cumberland River, to forward reinforcements 
and supplies to me. At that time he was my senior 
in rank, and there was no authority of law to assign 
a junior to command a senior of the same grade. But 



DONELSON 75 

every boat that came up with supplies or reinforce- 
ments brought a note of encouragement from Sher- 
man, asking me to call upon him for any assistance 
he could render and saying that if he could be of serv- 
ice at the front I might send for him and he would 
waive rank." 

More men fought at Donelson than ever before on 
American soil. It was the first substantial victory 
for the Union forces after nine months of procrastina- 
tion and defeat. Grant, who had been unknown the 
week before outside the jurisdiction of his own de- 
partment, was by a flash on February 17, 1862, the 
military idol of the day. In "Unconditional Sur- 
render" his countrymen at last had found a rallying 
cry. Yet they had faint conception of what had really 
been achieved by Grant in opening the Cumberland 
and the Tennessee. 



CHAPTER X 

UNDER A CLOUD 

With Donelson and Henry under Grant's control, 
the whole line from the Appalachians to the Missis- 
sippi crumbled like a shell. The indentation carried 
the Union forces into Nashville, which Johnston, 
having already abandoned Bowling Green, could no 
longer hold. Polk had to quit Columbus, and re- 
tired to Island No. 10, a hundred miles below. Mill 
Springs was gone. The Confederacy was pressed back 
to its second line, reaching easterly from Memphis 
through Corinth and Chattanooga, and northeasterly 
through Knoxville along the Cumberland Mountains 
to Virginia. The Northern people saw one outpost fall 
and then another, till it seemed to them like wizardry, 
and in the quick reaction they looked for speedy and 
complete success. But they took poor account of 
Vicksburg and the military problems it involved, 
and they knew little about service jealousies. 

All the world was praising Grant but Halleck, who 
was for praising everybody else. Three days after 
Donelson he wired to Stanton: "Smith, by his cool- 
ness and bravery at Fort Donelson, when the battle 
was against us, turned the tide and carried the 



UNDER A CLOUD 77 

enemy's outworks. Make him a major-general. You 
can't get a better one. Honor him for this victory, 
and the whole country will applaud." Nothing was 
said of Grant. He wired congratulations to Foote 
for his work with the fleet and to Hunter, who had 
simply sent from Kansas prompt reinforcements — 
but not a word to Grant. Later, when he caught the 
temper of the North, he wired : " Make Buell, Grant, 
and Pope major-generals of volunteers." He wired 
McClellan on the 26th: "I must have command of 
the armies in the West. Hesitation and delay are 
losing us the golden opportunity. . . . Answer quick." 
Neither Buell nor Pope, good soldiers, had seen fight- 
ing then, and Halleck never did. 

It was a plain discrimination, and Lincoln, appre- 
ciating the proprieties, sent in Grant's name alone, as 
major-general of volunteers dating from February 16. 
There should be no mistake about the cause of his pro- 
motion. Five weeks later came McClernand, Smith, 
and Wallace, with Buell and Pope ; and still later, 
Thomas, who would have had the earlier recognition 
he deserved had it not been for Stanton's unac- 
countable distrust. Grant had now fought his way 
unfriended to a rank well toward the top. 

Now comes a painful episode in Grant's career ; 
Halleck seemed incapable of letting him alone. While 
still in front of Donelson he had been assigned to the 



78 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

command of the new military district of West Ten- 
nessee, with "Limits not defined." It was uncertain 
where his jurisdiction overlapped with Buell's; and 
on the 28th of February, after wiring Halleck that, 
without orders to the contrary, he should go at once 
to Nashville, Grant went there to consult with Buell 
at the place which was to be a center of activity. The 
next day he returned to Donelson, and on March 3 
got orders to move his whole command back to Fort 
Henry with a view to an expedition up the Tennes- 
see to capture Corinth, the most important outpost 
in the South's new defensive line, protecting Memphis 
and Vicksburg upon which Grant for weeks had had 
his eye. 

The next day to his amazement Halleck wired: 
"You will place Major-General C. F. Smith in com- 
mand of the expedition and remain yourself at Fort 
Henry. AYhy do you not obey my orders to report 
strength and position of your command?" He had 
not disobeyed any order, had reported daily the con- 
dition of his command, had reported every position 
occupied, and so wired Halleck; but on the 6th came 
this reply: "Your neglect of repeated orders to report 
the strength of your command has created great 
dissatisfaction and seriously interfered with military 
plans. Your going to Nashville without authority, 
and when your presence with your troops was of the 



UNDER A CLOUD 79 

utmost importance, was a matter of very serious com- 
plaint at Washington, so much so that I was advised 
to arrest you on your return." 

"I did all I could to get you returns of the strength 
of my command," Grant, mystified, wired back. 
" Every move I made was reported daily to your chief 
of staff, who must have failed to keep you properly 
posted. I have done my very best to obey orders and 
to carry out the interests of the service. If my course 
is not satisfactory remove me at once. I do not wish 
in any way to impede the success of our arms. . . . 
My going to Nashville was strictly intended for the 
good of the service, and not to gratify any desire of 
my own. Believing sincerely that I must have ene- 
mies between you and myself who are trying to im- 
pair my usefulness, I respectfully ask to be relieved 
from further duty in the department." 

Then followed daily messages between the two; 
Grant urging that he be relieved, Halleck retreating 
slowly from his stand; and finally, when ordered by 
the President summarily to send a full report to 
Washington, retracting grudgingly, restoring Grant 
to his command. "As he acted from a praiseworthy 
although mistaken zeal for the public service in going 
to Nashville and leaving his command," he wired the 
Adjutant-General on March 13, " I respectfully rec- 
ommend that no further notice be taken of it." 



80 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

In his dispatches to Grant, Halleck had let the re- 
sponsibility for the misadventure rest with McClel- 
lan, and Grant accordingly was duly grateful to 
Halleck for having set him right. After the war the 
truth came out through McClellan's revelation of 
Halleck's original complaint. 1 

" I have had no communication with General Grant 
for more than a week," he had wired McClellan on 
March 2. "He left his command without my au- 
thority and went to Nashville. His army seems to be 
as much demoralized by the victory of Fort Donel- 
son as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of 
Bull Run. It is hard to censure a successful general 
immediately after a victory, but I think he richly 
deserves it. I can get no returns, no reports, no in- 
formation of any kind from him. Satisfied with his 
victory he sits down and enjoys it without regard to 
the future. I am worn out and tired with this neg- 
lect and inefficiency. C. F. Smith is almost the only 
officer equal to the emergency." 

To this McClellan replied: "The success of our 
cause demands that proceedings such as Grant's 
should be at once checked. Generals must observe 
discipline as well as private soldiers. Do not hesitate 
to arrest him at once if the good of the service re- 
quires it, and place C. F. Smith in command. You 
1 McClellan s Own Story, p. 216. 



UNDER A CLOUD 81 

are at liberty to regard this as a positive order if it 
will smooth your way." In replying to which Halleck 
intimated, perhaps, the real secret of his dislike: "A 
rumor has just reached me that since the taking of 
Fort Donelson Grant has resumed his former bad 
habits. If so it will account for his repeated neglect 
of my oft-repeated orders. I do not deem it advisable 
to arrest him at present, but have placed General 
Smith in command of the expedition up the Tennes- 
see. I think Smith will restore order and discipline." 

Grant subsequently learned that some of his re- 
ports to Halleck had been held up at Cairo, but 
this mishap would not excuse his summary execu- 
tion without a chance to enter a defense. 

There is a nice adjustment of justice with delicacy 
of feeling in this comment in his "Memoirs": "Gen- 
eral Halleck unquestionably deemed General C. F. 
Smith a much fitter officer for the command of all 
the forces in the military district than I was, and, to 
render him available for such command, desired his 
promotion to antedate mine and those of the other 
division commanders. It is probable that the general 
opinion was that Smith's long services in the army 
and distinguished deeds rendered him the most 
proper person for such command. Indeed, I was 
rather inclined to this opinion myself at that time, 
and would have served as faithfully under Smith as 



82 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

he had done under me. But this did not justify the 
dispatches which General Halleck sent to Washing- 
ton or his subsequent concealment of them from me 
when pretending to explain the action of my supe- 
riors." 

In disgrace at Fort Henry, Grant had congratu- 
lated Smith on turning over the command and wrote 
him, "Anything you may require, send back trans- 
ports for and if within my power you shall have it." 
There could be no jealousy between Grant and Smith. 
Grant's feeling for his old commander was almost 
one of awe, and when Smith first had come under his 
command he found it hard to give him orders. It 
was for the elder in service, now lower in rank, to 
relieve Grant's embarrassment. "I am now a subor- 
dinate," he delicately said; "I know a soldier's duty. 
I hope you will feel no awkwardness about our new 
relations." Smith died in a few weeks from hardships 
at Fort Donelson. He was too ill to serve at Shiloh. 
Sherman said once that if "Smith had been spared 
us Grant would never have been heard of"; he sub- 
sequently took it back, but with this early estimate 
Grant would then have agreed. 



CHAPTER XI 

SHILOH 

"My opinion was and still is that immediately after 
the fall of Fort Donelson the way was opened to the 
National forces all over the Southwest without much 
resistance. If one general who would have taken the 
responsibility had been in command of all the troops 
west of the Alleghanies, he could have marched 
to Chattanooga, Corinth, Memphis, and Vicksburg 
with the troops we then had; and as volunteering 
was going on rapidly over the North there would 
soon have been force enough at all those centers to 
operate offensively against any body of the enemy 
that might be found near them. . . . Providence 
ruled differently. Time was given the enemy to col- 
lect armies and fortify his new positions." Thus 
Grant has placed himself on record, and thus it 
might have happened with Grant himself or Charles 
F. Smith in sole command, but not with Halleck. 

Having smashed the South 's defensive line at Don- 
elson, the armies of the West turned next to Corinth, 
a little town in northern Mississippi of strategical 
importance because two railroads came together 
there which, thus connecting, brought Memphis on 



84 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the Mississippi and Mobile on the Gulf in touch 
with Charleston and the South Atlantic States. 
So long as the Confederates had Corinth, they had 
the base for a campaign to keep the lower Missis- 
sippi under their control and hold the Northern 
forces back. Beauregard, summoned from Virginia 
with the prestige of success, was there already and 
other generals were on the way — all to be under the 
command of Albert Sidney Johnston, still in good 
favor with the Cabinet at Richmond in spite of the 
catastrophe at Donelson and his enforced retreat. 
When men from Tennessee asked for another general, 
Davis had replied: "If Sidney Johnston is not a gen- 
eral, the Confederacy has none to give you." Center- 
ing at Corinth were nearly fifty thousand men. 

Halleck had formed ambitious plans. Command- 
ing all the armies in the West he was to lead in 
person the armies of the Tennessee and the Ohio, with 
Grant and Buell serving under him. He would have 
chosen Charles F. Smith instead of Grant if Wash- 
ington had let him, but Smith was laid up at Sa- 
vannah on the Tennessee, sick with the injury re- 
ceived at Donelson of which he shortly died. 

The move on Corinth was to be assault by Hal- 
leck's armies; but events precipitated battle on a 
field where Grant and Halleck had not planned to 
fight. Smith, while Grant was undergoing punish- 



SHILOH 85 

ment at Halleck's hands, had chosen as a rendezvous 
for the Union armies a bluff at Pittsburg Landing, 
twenty miles northeast of Corinth on the west bank 
of the Tennessee, preferring that place to Savannah, 
on the eastern bank and nine miles farther north, as 
Halleck had designed. Grant picked the Landing also 
on the theory that, as the plan was to attack and 
crush the enemy, the west side of the river was the 
place from which to strike. It would never do to let 
the Southern troops possess the bluff. He would wait 
there for Buell, when their united forces could ad- 
vance on Corinth. His troops were at the Land- 
ing, but he continued temporary quarters for him- 
self at Savannah where Buell was expected hourly to 
arrive. 

But Beauregard and Johnston, instead of waiting 
for attack at Corinth where they were intrenched, 
moved down the river to the western bank in order 
to catch Grant before Buell could arrive; and on 
a muddy, foggy Sunday morning, April 6, 1862, 
Johnston's army of forty thousand, under cover of the 
forest and the night having come up to the Union 
lines, brought on one of the deadliest battles of the 
war. McClernand, Sherman, Hurlbut, Prentiss, and 
William Wallace, who was temporarily commanding 
Smith's division, were encamped around Pittsburg 
Landing. Others were close at hand, — Lew Wal- 



86 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

lace at Crump's Landing, five miles below; Nelson, 
one of Buell's generals, who had arrived the day be- 
fore, camped near Savannah on the eastern bank; 
thirty thousand men in all potentially at Grant's 
disposal, while Buell with as many more was on the 
way. McClernand and Lew Wallace were major- 
generals, the rest brigadiers. 

Grant, for two days on crutches from a fall, was at 
Savannah looking for Buell whom he expected there 
that day; at breakfast he heard the firing at the front 
and started on a boat at once for Pittsburg Landing 
where he found the battle on. The Union camp was 
not intrenched. The Western armies had not learned 
the habit then; while Grant, convinced like all the 
rest, that Johnston would make his stand at Corinth, 
thought his raw troops would be less advantageously 
employed in digging than in drill and discipline. The 
Southern troops poured in over an exposed line about 
three miles from Pittsburg near a log-cabin meeting- 
house called Shiloh, where Sherman was encamped; 
and here the battle raged ferociously, giving a name 
to the day's engagement. 

Sherman's men, experiencing their first battle, 
thrown into confusion and losing their identity as 
a division, mixed themselves with McClernand's 
troops; and two divisions, scrambled into one, took 
orders indiscriminately from the two command- 



SHILOH 87 

ers, so desperate was the fight defying all the rules 
of war. Thus the battle went in all parts of the 
field, and thus Grant found it when he reached the 
scene. 

In the wild combat he was imperturbable as he had 
been at Donelson. "I can recall only two persons," 
writes Horace Porter, "who throughout a rattling 
fire of musketry always sat in their saddles without 
moving a muscle or winking an eye : one was a bugler 
and the other was General Grant." He rode from 
place to place wherever bullets flew and gave com- 
mands, as was his way, in a low, vibrant, penetrating 
voice, alert but undemonstrative; there was no mad 
rushing back and forth, no stirring calls to action; he 
might be beaten, but he could not be perturbed. The 
odds throughout were with the South. Lew Wallace, 
with seven thousand men, mistook his road and did 
not reach the field until late afternoon when the ex- 
hausted armies were welcoming the night. Prentiss 
was captured with his improvised brigade after a day 
of desperate fighting at the "Hornet's Nest." Nelson 
did not cross the river. Just who was blameworthy 
for these mishaps has been the theme of controversy 
ever since. 

As night approached, the Confederates had the 
best of it. They held the ground where Sherman's 
troops had slept the night before. The Union army, 



88 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

mercilessly battered, had been forced toward the 
river, beneath the bank of which thousands of panic- 
stricken stragglers chased to the rear were swarming. 

There have been few great battles with so little 
planning. Grant in command could not coordinate 
his forces or direct them from a given vantage-point. 
He must be where he could best be of service, now 
with Sherman, now with McClernand, now with 
Prentiss in the "Hornet's Nest," reorganizing, re- 
adjusting, realigning, ceaselessly encouraging first 
one brigade and then another, inspiring them with 
his indomitable will. 

The enemy were superior in numbers and not in- 
ferior in ability to fight. If in the middle of the after- 
noon the knightly Johnston had not fallen while 
rallying his men, no one can guess what might have 
happened. The South has said that his death turned 
the tide of battle; Jefferson Davis wrote years later 
that "the fortunes of a country hung by the single 
thread of the life that was yielded on the field of 
Shiloh." The world will never know. 

When Beauregard at sunset issued his order to sus- 
pend the fight till morning, Braxton Bragg, who was 
for risking everything upon a grand attack that night, 
declared to the staff officer who brought the message, 
that if it had not already reached the other generals 
he would not obey it, and added dismally, "The 



SHILOH 89 

battle is lost." But Beauregard always held that he 
was right, which is to-day the general view. 

Bragg would have fought ahead upon the theory 
that when opposing forces seemingly have spent 
their strength, the one which gathers first its lagging 
energies for a renewed assault is almost sure to win. 
That was the theory of which Grant gave a striking 
demonstration the next morning, and on which he 
turned the day at Donelson, which was a fundamen- 
tal feature of his strategy; but it must presuppose 
that in power of endurance the enemy does not excel, 
and that was not the case at Shiloh. 

With fewer men the Federal brigades had ob- 
stinately disputed every foot of ground since morn- 
ing, though taken where they had not thought to meet 
the enemy in formidable force, and that too without 
adequate formation. Lew Wallace had just reached 
the battered right with his seven thousand un- 
scathed veterans. Nelson was on the opposite bank 
and Buell's army was already landing from the trans- 
ports, while Beauregard had no reserves in sight. He 
had been held back two hours at the "Hornet's 
Nest" by Prentiss and William Wallace, and after 
Wallace had been killed and Prentiss captured, with 
two thousand men, he had been impeded by having to 
send captives to the rear. When night fell the time 
had passed when he could hope to seize the Union 



90 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

line by assault and cut off Grant's communication 
with approaching reinforcements. Bragg was right 
when he declared the battle lost, but he was doubt- 
less wrong in thinking a final charge could save it. 

Grant, so constituted that he could not know when 
he was beaten, had never doubted ultimate success, 
and when the armies bivouacked for the night, sleep- 
ing on their arms because the rebels had their tents, 
he had already planned to knit his line of battle and 
with fresh troops drive back the enemy. 

To Buell, who had reached Pittsburg Landing 
hours in advance of his men that Sunday afternoon, 
and saw the stragglers huddled by the thousand on 
the bank, defeat seemed imminent. "What prepara- 
tions have you made for retreat?" he asked Grant. 
"I haven't despaired of whipping them yet," said 
Grant. "Of course! But if you should be whipped, 
how will you get your men across the river? These 
transports will not take more than ten thousand 
troops." "If I have to retreat, ten thousand will be 
as many as I shall need transports for." 

Brutal indifference to human life it seemed; and 
when the news of Union losses came, — twelve 
thousand men, wounded or killed, — the Northern 
press began to call him "Butcher Grant." But that 
night with his aching leg he could not bear the sights 
and sounds in the shelter of the shanty where he tried 



SHILOH 91 

to sleep and where they had brought the wounded, 
but went out in the mud and driving rain to get what 
sleep he could, propped up against a tree. He has 
said of the one bull-fight he ever witnessed, "the 
sight to me was sickening." He could not bear the 
sight of blood or that of other men in pain, and he has 
written that one reason why, after the second day at 
Shiloh, he did not pursue the beaten enemy, was that 
he had not the heart to demand more work of his own 
jaded men; which may be set with Sherman's whim- 
sical reply when John Fiske asked him why the rebels 
were not chased: "I assure you, my dear fellow, we 
had had quite enough of their society for two whole 
days, and were only too glad to be rid of them on any 
terms"; l and Buell's bitter comment: "I make no 
attempt to excuse myself or blame others when I say 
that General Grant's troops, the lowest individual 
among them not more than the commander himself, 
appear to have thought the object of the battle was 
sufficiently accomplished when they were reinstated 
in their camps; and that in some way that idea 
obstructed the organization of my line until a further 
advance that day became impracticable." 

Certain it is the Southern forces were badly 
thrashed that second day. Beauregard must have 
realized that they would lose before the battle was 
1 The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, p. 99. 



92 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

renewed because he must have known that his de- 
pleted lines could not contend on equal terms against 
Grant's army reinforced by Wallace, with Buell's 
fresh divisions hourly pouring in. By four o'clock the 
remnant of his shattered force was in retreat toward 
Corinth. He had lost in missing, dead, and wounded 
over twelve thousand troops. The Union loss was 
equal, besides the capture of Prentiss and his force, 
but Grant and Buell had more men to spare. 

" I saw an open field in our possession on the second 
day," writes Grant, "over which the Confederates 
had made repeated charges the day before, so covered 
with dead that it would have been possible to walk 
across the clearing, in any direction, stepping on dead 
bodies, without a foot touching the ground. . . . On 
one part . . . bushes had grown up, some to the 
height of eight or ten feet. There was not one of 
these left standing unpierced by bullets." 

In the grewsome light of evidence like this of 
gallant and grim encounter, there is a Gascon touch 
in what Beauregard wrote to Grant from Corinth, 
when asking leave to bury his dead: "At the close of 
the conflict yesterday, my forces being exhausted by 
the extraordinary length of time during which they 
were engaged with yours ... I felt it my duty to 
withdraw my troops from the immediate scene of 
conflict." 



SH1L0H 93 

And now came Halleck ponderously from his 
arm-chair in St. Louis, to assume direct command 
four days after the battle had been won. He found 
awaiting him an army of one hundred thousand men, 
Pope, by the capture of Island No. 10, having opened 
the Mississippi down to Memphis and joined his 
army to those of Grant and Buell. With this great 
army, after prodigiously elaborate preparation, Hal- 
leck crept stealthily toward Corinth, where Beaure- 
gard was lingering with fifty thousand, covered the 
distance in a month, intrenching daily, keeping his 
army busy with axes, picks, and shovels, holding 
back his generals eager for a fight, and finally closed 
in triumphantly, only to find an empty town, which 
Beauregard had never meant to hold and had quit 
long before, leaving wooden guns frowning over 
useless earthworks to deceive the Federal com- 
mander. Beauregard knew, like almost everybody 
else, that Corinth had been captured when his as- 
sault at Shiloh failed. 

"After all," Halleck admitted finally to Grant, 
"you fought at Pittsburg Landing the battle of 
Corinth!" 



CHAPTER XII 

HUMILIATION 

While his superior was crawling through his evolu- 
tions, Grant underwent a cruel test of loyalty and 
patience. After Shiloh a storm of hot denunciation 
broke upon him. He could have been in hardly worse 
repute had he betrayed his country. If he were really 
guilty of a lapse he paid a bitter price. 

The first reports of Shiloh to reach the North were 
those of hostile critics, inspired in part by envious 
rivals. Buell's men were quick to say that only their 
arrival saved Grant's army and that the triumph of 
the second day belonged to them. McClernand, 
ready with his pen, wrote home, as after Donelson 
and Belmont, claiming the glory of the day. The 
Sunday skulkers on the river-bank thought every- 
body else had also run away, and told this tale where- 
ever they could hold a listener among the gullible and 
sympathetic visitors to camp. The Northern press 
defiled itself with slander: Grant was drunk before the 
battle and while it was on, loafing behind and letting 
others fight; Prentiss and his men had been caught 
sleeping in their tents and bayoneted in their beds; 
thousands of Northern volunteers had been slaugh- 
tered wantonly. 



HUMILIATION 95 

Fed by such tales the Western States, whose troops 
had suffered most, were glad when Halleck came, 
remodeling the army, now reinforced to more than 
one hundred thousand men, into three great divi- 
sions, one under Buell, one under Thomas, one un- 
der Pope — Grant looking on as "second in com- 
mand" with no one subject to his order except his 
personal staff. Thus it was while Halleck crept to- 
ward Corinth, and then, " Why not press on to Vicks- 
burg before it can be strengthened?" he suggested, 
bringing from Halleck the rebuke, "When your ad- 
vice is needed it will be asked." For Halleck thought 
the aim of war was to get places, and Corinth was a 
place; while Grant was taught at Shiloh that the 
South could not be conquered until its armies were 
destroyed and its resources gone, and to seize Vicks- 
burg promptly would give the Union army the Mis- 
sissippi, cut off the Southern sources of supply from 
the Southwest and Mexico, and hasten the contrac- 
tion and compression of the rebel forces to receive 
the final crushing blow. Vicksburg once captured, 
Corinth would again become a railroad junction — 
nothing more. 

And so with each strategic point; to Grant its only 
value was as a resting-place from which to spring 
upon the next. To hold it longer wasted men who 
could be put to stouter service somewhere else. But 



96 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Halleck clung to Corinth, letting Vicksburg wait 
until the Southern armies gathered strength for its 
defense; so that what might have been accomplished 
in a month by swift advances called after Shiloh for 
a year's campaign with grueling encounters over a 
broad field, while Corinth itself, which fell to Hal- 
leck unresisted in early May, was held by Rosecrans 
the next October only after one of the historic battles 
of the war. "I think the enemy will continue his re- 
treat, which is all I desire," was Halleck's message 
while Beauregard was trekking south. Hence no 
precautions against the prospect of the enemy's re- 
covery and return. 

So Grant lay rusting in his tent while Halleck 
dawdled and the critics bawled; not sulky or resent- 
ful, but chafing inwardly and sick at heart that a great 
opportunity should pass which he thought he knew 
how to seize. Orders were sent his troops without his 
knowledge. Reports of his subordinates at Shiloh 
were forwarded to Washington without passing 
through his hands. On the strength of his unselfish 
praise Halleck asked higher rank for Sherman, but 
did not mention Grant by name. 

"The President desires to know," wired Stanton, 
"whether any neglect or misconduct of General 
Grant or any other officer contributed to the sad cas- 
ualties that befell our forces on Sunday "; to which 



HUMILIATION 97 

Halleck significantly replied: "The casualties were 
due in part to the bad conduct of officers utterly un- 
fit for their places. ... I prefer to express no opinion 
in regard to the conduct of individuals till I receive 
reports of commanders of divisions" — evasive save 
by insinuation. 

Grant asked to be relieved from duty altogether 
and have his command defined. " You have precisely 
the position to which your rank entitles you ..." 
replied Halleck. "For the last three months I have 
done everything in my power to ward off the attacks 
which were made upon you." Sherman heard from 
Halleck that Grant had leave to go away — Sherman 
who had no fame till Shiloh, except the tale that he 
was crazy because at the beginning of the war the 
press had quoted him as saying that to occupy Ken- 
tucky would take two hundred thousand men, and 
who had just begun to love and prize the silent soldier 
whose traits were in such contrast to his own. He 
rode straightway to Grant's headquarters and asked 
why he was going. "Sherman, you know," said Grant, 
"You know that I am in the way here. I have stood 
it as long as I can." Where was he going? "To 
St. Louis." Had he any business there? "Not a 
bit." Then Sherman argued, his own case in mind, 
that if he went, the war would go right on and he 
would be left out; while if he stayed, some acci- 



98 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

dent might bring him back to favor and his true 
place. l 

Grant stayed, but found it irksome. The flunkeys 
at headquarters still ignored him; the attacks at home 
persisted; Congress debated him. John Sherman in 
the Senate almost alone dared come to his defense, 
drawing upon himself the angry protest of Harlan, of 
Iowa, against this "attempt to bolster up Grant's 
reputation." "The Iowa troops," said Harlan, "have 
no confidence in his capacity and fitness for the high 
position he now holds. They regard him as the au- 
thor of the useless slaughter of many hundreds of 
their brave comrades. . . . There is nothing in his an- 
tecedents to justify a further trial of his military skill. 
... At Belmont he committed an egregious and un- 
pardonable military blunder. ... At Fort Donelson 
the right wing . . . under his immediate command was 
defeated and driven back. . . . The battle was re- 
stored by General Smith. . . . On the battlefield of 
Shiloh his army was completely surprised . . . and 
nothing but the stubborn bravery of the men fight- 
ing by regiments and brigades saved the army from 
utter destruction. The battle was afterwards re- 
stored and conducted by General Buell and other 
generals. . . . With such a record, those who con- 
tinue General Grant in an active command will in 
1 Memoirs of W. T. Sherman, vol. i, p. 283. 



HUMILIATION 99 

my opinion carry on their skirts the blood of thou- 
sands of their slaughtered countrymen." 

The riot of detraction stirred the War Department 
and the White House. It was then that Lincoln met 
the plea of powerful delegations that Grant should be 
relieved from duty, with the not-to-be-forgotten an- 
swer, "I can't spare this man — he fights!" 

After two months Halleck restored Grant to a 
separate command, and Grant betook himself to 
Memphis, lately fallen into Union hands with the 
capitulation of Island No. 10 and Corinth. There, 
having fixed his headquarters, he remained, still 
rusticated, but no longer stung by daily slights in 
front of Halleck's armies, till there came one of the 
fantastic shifts which were so frequent in the first 
months of the war. 

Things were in sad odor in Virginia — McClellan 
forced back to the James by Lee had shattered Lin- 
coln's faith, and Lincoln, casting around in his per- 
plexity for military competence, called Halleck from 
the West to Washington, ordering on July 11 that he 
"be assigned to command the whole land forces of 
the United States as General-in-Chief," for Halleck 
was in nominal command of all the armies of the 
West, by whom the only Union victories had been 
won. 

"In leaving this department," he wired to Stanton, 



100 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

"shall I relinquish the command to next in rank, or 
will the President designate who is to be the com- 
mander?" Stanton wired to turn the army over to 
the next in rank — and Halleck ordered Grant to 
come to Corinth. 

"Shall I bring my staff?" Grant asked. "You can 
do as you please," was the response. "Corinth will 
be your headquarters." 

There he set up his camp with fifty thousand men 
to hold the district between Corinth and Cairo, Hal- 
leck's big army having been broken up; and, through 
the summer, under orders, he lay still. He would 
have been forgotten, so fickle is fame gained in war, 
had it not been for the dispute concerning Shiloh 
which had spasmodic life with politicians and the 
press of the Middle Western States. He suffered 
keenly, but in silence, except with Sherman, who had 
won his confidence and who was in command at 
Memphis; with Washburne, to whom as his one friend 
in Washington he felt some explanation due; and 
with his father, sputtering with parental indignation, 
writing and talking in his defense among his old 
friends near his boyhood home. 

"I would scorn being my own defender against 
such attacks," he wrote to Washburne in early May, 
"except through the record which has been kept of 
all my official acts. ... To say that I have not been 



HUMILIATION 101 

distressed at these attacks would be false; for I have 
a father, mother, wife, and children who read them 
and are distressed by them, and I necessarily share 
with them in it. Then, too, all subject to my orders 
read these charges, and it is calculated to weaken 
their confidence in me, and weaken my ability to 
render efficient service in our present cause. ... I 
cannot be driven from rendering the best service 
within my ability to suppress the present rebellion. 
. . . Notoriety has no charms for me. . . . Looking 
back at the past I cannot see for the life of me any 
important point that could be corrected." 

To his father he writes in August: "I do not expect 
nor want the support of the Cincinnati press on my 
side. Their course has been so remarkable from the 
beginning that should I be endorsed by them I should 
fear that the public would mistrust my patriotism. I 
am sure that I have but one desire in this war and 
that is to put down the rebellion. I have no hobby of 
my own with regard to the negro either to effect his 
freedom or to continue his bondage. ... I do not 
believe even in the discussion of the propriety of laws 
and official orders by the army. One enemy at a time 
is enough and when he is subdued, it will be time 
enough to settle personal differences." 

Just before Corinth, in September, he writes his 
father one of the few letters in which there is a sign 



102 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of petulance. " I . . . have never had any other feeling 
either here or elsewhere but that of success. I would 
write you many particulars, but you are so impru- 
dent that I dare not trust you with them; and while 
on this subject let me say a word. I have not an 
enemy in the world who has done me so much injury 
as you in your efforts in my defense. I require no 
defenders and for my sake let me alone. I have heard 
this from various sources, and persons who have re- 
turned to this army and did not know that I had 
parents living near Cincinnati have said that they 
found the best feeling existing toward me in every 
place except there. You are constantly denouncing 
other general officers, and the inference with' people 
naturally is that you get your impressions from 
me. Do nothing to correct what you have already 
done, but for the future keep quiet on this sub- 
ject." 

Almost brutal in the directness of the rebuke, such 
words could have been forced from Grant only by 
deep feeling long suppressed. And yet how tame com- 
pared with Sherman's fire, who wrote home with his 
wounded hand: "It is outrageous for the cowardly 
newspapers thus to defame men whose lives are ex- 
posed." For Sherman's anger burned and blazed 
against the "little whip-snappers who represent the 
press, but are in fact spies in our camps," warning 



HUMILIATION 103 

that "death awaits them whenever I have the 
power" — Sherman of whom Charles Eliot Norton 
said to Curtis, "How his wrath swells and grows . . . 
he writes as well as he fights." 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE MISSISSIPPI CAMPAIGN 

Headed toward Vicksburg in command, at last Grant 
had the chance he had been looking for, though handi- 
capped by the dispersion of a splendid army and by 
the dilatory tactics which gave the enemy an oppor- 
tunity to fortify and man the place. His strategy in 
following a line of conquest which paralleled the 
Mississippi, compelling the evacuation of the hostile 
river strongholds one by one, had cleared the water 
highway for the fleet of Union gunboats all the way 
down from Cairo. Paducah, Henry, Donelson, and 
Shiloh, in giving the Union armies the Tennessee as 
far south as Nashville and beyond to Corinth, had 
also transferred to their control Columbus, Memphis, 
Fort Pillow, and Island No. 10; for though Island 
No. 10 was seized by Pope while Shiloh was in fight, 
it would have dropped into his hands without resist- 
ance if he had waited a few days. 

Farragut had seized New Orleans three weeks af- 
ter Shiloh and Butler was earning his sobriquet of 
"Beast" as military governor of the town. Farra- 
gut's boats could ply the river as far north as forti- 
fied Port Hudson, while those of Davis could convey 
supplies to feed the Federal armies as far south as 



THE MISSISSIPPI CAMPAIGN 105 

Vicksburg. Thus these two strongholds still in rebel 
hands were of the utmost value to the Southern 
cause. Not only did they cut in two the Union navy, 
but they controlled the gateway to the granary of the 
South, in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana, rich enough 
in soil to feed the Southern armies and rich enough in 
men to reinforce them with one hundred thousand 
fresh recruits. The Red River, running through 
Texas and Louisiana, emptied into the Mississippi 
below Vicksburg and above Port Hudson. To close 
its mouth against the contributions of the territory 
which it drained and to open up the Mississippi from 
Cairo to the Gulf was a high stake to play for, and 
Grant was not the only general who had it in his eye, 
although no other set such store upon the need of 
speed in forcing the assault. 

Now that he was on the road to the achievement, 
he chafed with waiting. The enemy had been greatly 
reinforced while Halleck loitered and were now trying 
to regain part of the ground which they had lost. 
Iuka and Corinth were saved by Ord and Rosecrans 
only after fierce attack by Sterling Price and Earl 
Van Dorn. Vicksburg, which had been lightly manned 
and thinly fortified in April, had been growing 
stouter every day till it was now well-nigh impreg- 
nable. Nature had guarded it on the north by 
swamps, bayous, and shallow lakes through which 



106 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

invading armies could not hope to force their way; 
on the west by a steep bluff two hundred feet in 
height, from which its batteries could rain a plunging 
fire upon the rash fleet which should undertake 
assault and up to which no ship could hope to train its 
guns; on the south by the promontories of Port Hud- 
son and Grand Gulf, by this time manned and forti- 
fied till they were strongholds in themselves. The sole 
approach was from the west and there the strength- 
ened Southern armies intervened, Van Dorn for his 
defeat at Corinth, for which he was not really culpa- 
ble, having given place to Pemberton, a Pennsylva- 
nian by birth, trained at West Point, a rebel out of 
friendship for the Confederate President, who gave 
him rank above his seniors and responsible command 
unjustified by service or by the event. 

Grant's first plan was to parallel the river with- 
out approaching it, just as from Paducah to Pittsburg 
Landing, compelling Vicksburg's fall, as he had 
forced the fall of all the other strongholds between 
Vicksburg and Cairo by seizing points of vantage 
along the Tennessee. He would abandon Corinth as 
no longer necessary, now that its railroad connections 
were in his hands and press hard on the rebel forces 
which protected Vicksburg. 

Having in mind the moss-grown axiom of war that 
a great army in a hostile country should have a base 



THE MISSISSIPPI CAMPAIGN 107 

to which it could fall back in case of need, he fixed 
Columbus as his base and deserting Corinth marched 
his force along the Mississippi Central Railroad from 
Grand Junction to Grenada, while Sherman with 
Memphis for a base moved down the Mississippi on 
transports to effect a landing at the bluffs just north 
of Vicksburg and thus cooperate with Grant, who 
hoped to keep the enemy engaged while Sherman 
captured Vicksburg by assault. When he set out, 
both he and Sherman, with whom he talked it out at 
Oxford, would have chosen rather to move in full 
force on Jackson, the Mississippi capital, using 
Memphis as a base, but the Mississippi Central 
Railroad, which ran from Memphis to Jackson, had 
been torn up between Memphis and Grenada, and to 
wait for its repair would eat up time, already grown 
too dear. Even as it was the time was wasted. 
Grant kept getting mystic messages from Washington 
whose meaning did not dawn on him till after the 
event. Forrest with his cavalry left Bragg in front of 
Rosecrans at Murfreesboro, and darting through .the 
State of Tennessee cut Grant's communication with 
Columbus by spoiling sixty miles of railroad and 
leveling the telegraph, so that Grant, completely 
isolated and unable even to tell Sherman of his 
plight, had to work slowly back living off the coun- 
try during the eighty miles' retreat, since Holly 



108 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Springs, where stores had been accumulated for an 
emergency, was at that moment surrendered to Van 
Dorn, who in a quick dash from the rear had found 
a coward in command. Grant, after three weeks' iso- 
lation, again in touch with Memphis on January 8, 
learned that Sherman ten days before had been beaten 
back in his assault upon the bluffs near Vicksburg, 
and that McClernand was in command of the 
Mississippi River expedition, supplanting Sherman 
on the strength of Lincoln's order. 

It was now midwinter and nothing had been 
gained since spring except experience, though Grant's 
offensive had at least diverted Forrest's cavalry from 
Bragg, likewise ten thousand men whom Bragg sent to 
help Pemberton, thus weakening his own force and 
doubtless giving Rosecrans the victory in the close- 
fought battle of Stone River, January 1, which opened 
up the way for Missionary Ridge and Chattanooga, 
the possession of Knoxville and Atlanta, and Sher- 
man's march through Georgia. 



CHAPTER XIV 
McCLERNAND 

McClernand's plottings and ambitions, his rivalry 
and jealousy of Grant, comprise a curious chapter of 
the time — one of the episodes of Grant's career 
which seem to indicate a hovering Providence. 
Nothing but unfaltering faith and an unswerving 
loyalty could have enabled him to meet unquestion- 
ing the obstacles he faced, especially those set before 
him early in the war before his fame was fixed. The 
brigadiers from Illinois whom Lincoln named with 
him at the beginning had been tangled in his fortunes 
ever since. Though he outranked them by coming 
earliest on the list, they held themselves as his 
superiors. Why not? Newly arrived, he had been 
selling leather in Galena only four months ago, 
while they had long been men of much repute. At 
that stage of the war a regiment was like a militant 
town meeting. To stand high in politics marked one 
as fitted for command. When Prentiss in Missouri 
found himself subordinate to Grant, he quit in anger, 
flashing hotly, "I will not serve under a drunkard!" 
— but came back later, fought under Grant at 
Donelson and Shiloh, and gallantly on many other 
fields. Hurlbut marred a creditable record with 



110 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

wearisome complaints. McClernand represented 
Lincoln's town in Congress — a Douglas Democrat. 
It was important at the outbreak of the war that he 
and Logan should stand by the Union cause, and 
Lincoln, always politic, courted their favor. Had it 
not been for his self-seeking vanity McClernand 
might have left a record to compare with Logan's, 
but his ambition overleaped itself. Scheming for 
praise at home, he claimed such glory as there was at 
Belmont, Donelson, and Shiloh, filling the local press 
with tributes to his valor, poisoning the mails with 
scandal about Grant, presuming on a neighbor's 
privilege to make reports direct to Lincoln, intriguing 
for a separate command, and now, when Vicksburg 
was in sight, running to Washington with a pre- 
sumptuous plan for self-aggrandizement. He was to 
organize an independent expedition to clear the 
Mississippi to New Orleans, picking up Vicksburg on 
the way, and for this purpose Lincoln ordered him to 
raise the necessary troops in Indiana, Iowa, and 
Illinois. In patriotic fervor of appeal McClernand 
could not be excelled. He swiftly garnered forty 
thousand volunteers, and by the time Grant started 
south with Sherman was prepared to enter on a con- 
quering career. "I have a greater general now than 
either Grant or Sherman," Lincoln said to Admiral 
Porter; but in issuing his order to McClernand he 



McCLERNAND 111 

cautiously refrained from giving him the free hand 
which McClernand sought, providing that "when a 
sufficient force not required by the operations of 
General Grant's command shall be raised, an expedi- 
tion may be organized under General McClernand's 
command against Vicksburg and to clear the Missis- 
sippi River and open navigation to New Orleans." 
It was this order which lay behind the disconcerting 
messages Grant had from Halleck. McClernand 
thought it gave him equal place with Grant. His 
error did not dawn upon him till, after superseding 
Sherman, having gained a foothold in Arkansas, and 
encouraged thus to undertake the wanton task of 
leading thirty thousand men to clear the State of 
rebel troops, he was called back summarily by Grant, 
aghast at the proposal to divert so great a segment of 
his army from the immediate work in hand. Grant 
wired to Halleck that McClernand had "gone on a 
wild-goose chase"; McClernand, sullenly obedient, 
wrote confidentially to Lincoln, " My success here is 
gall and wormwood to the clique of West Pointers 
who have been persecuting me for months"; Sher- 
man, who six months before had steadied Grant, now, 
wounded to the quick, wrote to his brother John: 
" Mr. Lincoln intended to insult me and the military 
profession by putting McClernand over me, and I 
would have quietly folded up my things and gone to 



112 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

St. Louis only I know in times like these all must 
submit to insult and infamy if necessary." Of the 
three generals, Grant was the one to hold his poise. 

Embarrassing as was the controversy with Mc- 
Clernand, its ultimate result was to make Grant in 
person assume the task of taking Vicksburg instead 
of leaving it to Sherman, who otherwise would have 
been chosen for the work and who would not have 
followed without specific orders the plans Grant had 
in mind; but unless he changed his nature it was in- 
evitable that McClernand should be relieved from a 
command which brought him into conflict with his 
superior. So long as he remained with Grant he was 
profanely insubordinate, lingered behind when or- 
dered to advance; arranged spectacular reviews when 
fighting was at hand, cumbered himself with wagons 
when told to leave them in the rear, continued firing 
when instructed to harbor ammunition, swore at 
Wilson, who brought him directions from Grant, " I '11 
be God damned if I will do it — I am tired of being 
dictated to." 

Finally he issued a vainglorious order to his corps 
congratulating them for gallantry in an assault on 
Vicksburg which did not succeed and taking other 
corps to task for failure to cooperate. He sent this on 
to Illinois for publication without submitting it to 
Grant, and for this gross breach of discipline, resented 



McCLERNAND 113 

angrily by Sherman and McPherson and their men, 
Grant sent him home to Springfield, relieving him 
summarily from his command. From Springfield 
three months later he sent to Washington a viru- 
lent letter requesting a court of inquiry. " How far 
General Grant is indebted to the forbearance of 
officers under his command for his retention in the 
public service so long," he wrote, " I will not under- 
take to state unless he should challenge it. None 
know better than himself how much he is indebted 
to their forbearance. Neither will I undertake to 
show that he is indebted to the good conduct of 
officers and men of his command at different times 
for the series of successes that have gained him ap- 
plause, rather than to his merit as a commander, 
unless he should challenge it too." When this attack 
reached Washington, it was too late to do Grant any 
harm. The President would not consent to an in- 
quiry, taking the ground that it "would necessarily 
withdraw from the field many officers whose presence 
with their commander is absolutely indispensable to 
the service and whose absence might cause irrepar- 
able injury to the success of active operations now 
in active progress." 

"McClernand played himself out," Sherman 
wrote home the day after Vicksburg fell, "and there is 
not an officer or soldier here but rejoices he is gone 



114 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

away. With an intense selfishness and love of noto- 
riety he could not let his mind get beyond the limits 
of his vision, and therefore all was brilliant about him 
and dark and suspicious beyond. My style is the 
reverse. I am somewhat blind to what occurs near me, 
but have a clear perception of things and events re- 
mote. Grant possesses the happy medium, and it is 
for this reason I admire him. I have a much quicker 
perception of things than he, but he balances the 
present and remote so evenly that results follow in 
natural course." 



CHAPTER XV 
VICKSBURG 

Sherman's rebuff near Vicksburg revived the storm 
of criticism and stirred the Northern press to new 
attacks on Grant, as well as on other Union generals 
East and West. The story in Virginia had been one 
of procrastination and defeat and now the gleam of 
hope in Mississippi seemed to have vanished too. 
McClernand's advocates were vocal. But there was 
nothing in it now for Grant except to feel his way. 
He could not force his troops through the net of 
creeks and bayous swollen with winter's freshets, but 
transferring his army to the west bank of the river he 
encamped at Milliken's Bend and utilized the time 
till spring in testing schemes to get boats and 
supplies around the Vicksburg batteries to help the 
army later operate below; cutting canals to change 
the river's winding course; breaking levees, uniting 
lakes, hunting for channels; and all the time attending 
to the disagreeable details of army management. Dis- 
honest and disloyal traders from the North infested 
his department, drawn by the lure of cotton specula- 
tion, and at last in desperation he ordered the expul- 
sion of "Jews as a class" — a drastic step which 
raised a storm of protest in Congress and the press 



116 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

till Lincoln countermanded it — Lincoln, who knew 
Grant's feeling toward the traders in necessities of 
war, his old friend Leonard Swett, of Springfield, 
having once been ordered out of Cairo on pain of 
being shot because he tried to force on Grant a ques- 
tionable deal in hay. When Swett sought Lincoln at 
the White House with his protest, Lincoln said, 
" Well, Swett, if I were in your place, I should keep 
out of Ulysses Simpson's bailiwick, for to the best of 
my knowledge and belief Grant will keep his promise 
if he catches you in Cairo." 

Amid distractions such as these Grant worked out 
his daring plans for seizing Vicksburg. He was on 
trial at Washington. Discontent was spreading 
through the North, discouraged by the months of 
dreary waiting. It was a dark hour for the Union 
cause. Stanton, hard pressed on every side, was 
moved in his impatience to do a foolish thing. He 
thought to bribe his generals into action and sent a 
letter to Grant, Rosecrans, and Hooker promising to 
make the victor of the first important battle a major- 
general in the regular army. Rosecrans, commanding 
the Army of the Cumberland in Tennessee, wrote a 
petulant reply. Hooker promptly led the Army of 
the Potomac to humiliating defeat at Chancellors- 
ville. Grant ignored the letter; he did not let it 
hasten him or influence his course. 




GRANT AS MAJOR-GENERAL COMMANDING 

IN THE WEST 

Photograph by J. E. McClees 

From tin collection of Frederick Hill Mes< rve 



VICKSBURG 117 

When all was ready on the night of April 16, 1863, 
Porter bravely ran the blazing Vicksburg batteries 
with a portion of his fleet, following with others later, 
safely performing almost without a scar a feat which 
Sherman and most of Grant's other generals thought 
too perilous to undertake. The army, having marched 
down the western bank by a circuitous route, was 
camped at Carthage in Louisiana ready to be ferried 
across the Mississippi, and on the 30th of April it 
landed on the eastern side at Bruinsburg, south of 
Vicksburg. 

There began the wonderful campaign which ended 
two months later in Pemberton's capitulation of the 
rebel stronghold. "When this landing was effected," 
Grant says, "I felt a degree of relief scarcely ever 
equaled since. Vicksburg was not yet taken it is true, 
nor were its defenders demoralized by any of our 
previous moves. I was now in the enemy's country 
with a vast river and the stronghold of Vicksburg 
between me and my base of supplies. But I was on 
dry ground on the same side of the river with the 
enemy. All the campaigns, labor, hardships, and 
exposures from the month of December previous to 
this time that had been made and endured, were for 
the accomplishment of this one object." 

How in a flash he seized Port Gibson and then, 
without a word to Halleck, and in the face of Sher- 



118 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

man's doubts, with only three days' rations, cutting 
loose from base, struck out for Vicksburg, feeding his 
army off the country as he rushed them on from 
fight to fight; how Halleck, too late learning what 
was on, ordered him back to help Banks at Port 
Hudson; how he caught Joe Johnston at Jackson, 
separating Johnston's Army from Pemberton's, 
and seized the Mississippi capital and railroad center, 
cutting off Vicksburg from this depot of supplies; 
how in eighteen days he marched two hundred miles, 
won five pitched battles, took eight thousand pris- 
oners and eighty cannon, scattered a hostile army 
larger than his own fighting on its chosen ground, and 
had the rebel army penned in Vicksburg, is a story 
whose mere recital emblazons the chronicles of war. 
"This is a campaign," cried Sherman as he rode out 
with Grant on May 18, and looked down on the 
bluffs where he had been repulsed so signally five 
months before. " Until this moment I never thought 
your movement a success. But this is a success, even 
if we never take the town." 

There came one set-back. On May 22, hearing that 
Johnston was gathering an army to raise the siege, he 
ventured an assault, and after a reverse, misled by 
an appeal for aid from McClernand, who fancied 
he alone was carrying the forts, ordered a second 
assault, resulting in a bad repulse. He then renewed 



VICKSBURG 119 

the siege, his army strengthened by recruits to sev- 
enty thousand men, and on the morning of July 
4, swift on the heels of Gettysburg, he entered 
Vicksburg, Pemberton surlily surrendering thirty- 
one thousand men and one hundred and seventy- 
two pieces of artillery. "Grant . . ." Dana wired 
to Stanton, "was received by Pemberton with . . . 
marked impertinence. . . . He bore it like a phi- 
losopher." 

After all was over Grant handed back to Sherman 
the letter Sherman wrote advising him against his 
daring plan. He says the subject was not mentioned 
subsequently by either till the end of the war, and 
that "Sherman gave the same energy to make the 
campaign a success that he would or could have done 
if it had been ordered by himself." 

"The campaign of Vicksburg," Sherman later 
wrote, "in its conception and execution, belonged ex- 
clusively to General Grant, not only in the great 
whole, but in the thousands of its details. I still 
retain many of his letters and notes, all in his own 
handwriting, prescribing the routes of march for 
divisions and detachments, specifying even the 
amount of food and tools to be carried along. Many 
persons gave his adjutant-general, Rawlins, the 
credit for these things, but they were in error; for no 
commanding general of any army ever gave more of 



120 ULYSSES S. GRAXT 

his personal attention to details, or wrote so many 
of his own orders, reports, and letters, as General 
Grant." * ' ♦ * 

Even if Grant's career had ended then, his fame 
was safe, for subsequent defeat could not have 
spoiled the perfect record of his high achievement. 
No matter what had gone before or what might 
happen after Vicksburg, he now had confidence in his 
own destiny. He felt that he would be the one to 
bring the war to a successful end. Vicksburg had been 
before his eye ever since Paducah, and it had come at 
last to him among a great array of Union generals 
who had at the beginning more prestige, without 
intrigue for self-advancement on his part, and in the 
face of personal rebuffs which would have dismayed 
a man of ordinary mould. 

"Every one has his superstitions," he wrote years 
later, referring to his silence under criticism. "One of 
mine is that in positions of great responsibility every 
one should do his duty to the best of his ability when 
assigned by competent authority, without applica- 
tion or the use of'influence to change his position. 

"While at Cairo I had watched with very great 

interest the operations of the Army of the Potomac, 

looking upon that as the main field.-of Jthe war. I had 

no idea myself of ever having any large command, 

1 Memoirs of W. T. Sherman, vol. i, p. 362. 



VICKSBURG 121 

nor did I suppose that I was equal to one; but I said 
I would give anything if I were commanding a 
brigade of cavalry in the Army of the Potomac and 
believed that I could do some good. Captain Hillyer 
suggested that I make application to be transferred 
there to command the cavalry. I then told him that 
I would cut my right arm off first." 

He had now conquered Halleck's prejudice as he 
had justified the trust of Lincoln. "In boldness of 
plan, rapidity of execution, and brilliancy of results," 
wrote Halleck handsomely, "these operations will 
compare most favorably with those of Napoleon 
about Ulm." Sherman wrote years later that the 
campaign would rank with the best of the young 
Napoleon in Italy in 1796, and that the "position at 
Vicksburg was more difficult than that at Sebasto- 
pol," which he had seen. 

" I would not have risked the passing of the batter- 
ies at Vicksburg and trusting to the long route by 
Grand Gulf and Jackson to reach what we both knew 
were the key -points to Vicksburg," Sherman ac- 
knowledged when the siege was over. "But I would 
have aimed to reach the same points from Grenada. 
But both aimed at the same points, and though both 
of us knew little of the actual ground, it is wonderful 
how well they have realized our military calculations. 
As we sat at Oxford last November we saw in the 



122 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

future what we now realize, and like the architect 
who sees developed the beautiful vision of his brain, 
we feel an intense satisfaction at the realization of our 
military plans. I thank God no President was near to 
thwart our plans and that the short-sighted public 
could not drive us from our object till the plan was 
fully realized." 

Yet Sherman always thought that if Grant had 
kept on from Oxford after the capture of his supplies 
at Holly Springs, he would have saved the six months 
used in reaching Bruinsburg and have achieved the 
same result. Grant might have done this had his 
troops then had the seasoning he gave them later. 

The chapter cannot properly be closed save with 
the letter Lincoln wrote to Grant at Vicksburg within 
a week after it had fallen : — 

"I do not remember that you and I ever met per- 
sonally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledg- 
ment for the almost inestimable service you have done 
the country. I wish to say a word further. When you 
first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you 
should do what you finally did — march the troops 
across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, 
and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except 
a general hope that you knew better than I, that the 
Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. 
When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand 



VICKSBURG 123 

Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the 
river and join General Banks, and when you turned 
northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a 
mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowl- 
edgment that you were right and I was wrong." 

Lincoln at once named Grant a major-general in 
the regular army. He had not needed Stanton's 
bribe. 



CHAPTER XVI 

RAWLINS AND DANA 

" The simple fact is that the great character which 
has passed into history under the name of Grant was 
compounded of both Grant and Rawlins in nearly 
equal parts. While one has become a national hero 
whose fame will never die, the other unnecessarily 
effaced himself and is now scarcely known beyond the 
acquaintance of his surviving comrades or the limits 
of the community from which both took up arms for 
the cause of the Union." Thus a distinguished soldier, 
who was on Grant's staff and intimate with both men, 
has written. 1 It has even been asserted that Rawlins 
spoke with Grant's lips and looked out of Grant's eyes 
so closely did they intertwine. Hyperbole like this 
will not be credited by those who read the record, yet 
it is no great stretch to say that Rawlins was Grant's 
conscience, though he did not compare with him in 
the peculiar qualities which were responsible for 
Grant's success. 

It was Grant's great good fortune that, in the 
casual thought he gave his staff when he became a 
brigadier, he should have hit on Rawlins, a crude, 
young lawyer who had worked his way up from the 

1 General James II. Wilson, Life of Charles A. Dana, p. 241. 



RAWLINS AND DANA 125 

charcoal pit, whom Grant had hardly seen until the 
first war meeting in Galena, and who had caught his 
fancy there in an impassioned plea for volunteers. 
With one or two exceptions the early members of his 
staff, chosen for old times' sake or to please his family, 
were found to be incumbrances and were perforce 
discarded as he shouldered heavier burdens, to be 
replaced by men like Wilson, Porter, Comstock, 
Badeau, Leet, and Babcock, each of whom had some 
peculiar merit. Rawlins and Bowers were with him 
till they died. But indispensable as Rawlins came to 
be, there is no evidence that he contributed to 
Grant's supreme achievement except by giving him 
unselfishly the service of an unfailing adjutant and 
devoted friend. He had scant learning and no mili- 
tary training but what he gained in camp with Grant. 
He was robustly honest, grim of face and crudely 
mannered, outspoken and explosive with profanity, 
at heart a Puritan. He protected Grant in countless 
ways from those who would impose on his simplicity, 
made others show Grant deference which Grant 
would not exact himself, and watched him con- 
stantly to save him from mistakes. Perhaps his 
greatest service was in keeping him from drink, for 
he appreciated more than Grant the handle envious 
rivals made of any lapse, and that while Grant might 
drink no more than others, he could not afford to 



126 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

drink as much, by very reason of the stories which 
were widely spread and of the damage they might do 
the Union cause. Of course there is no question of 
Grant's habit, and that at times he favored it too 
much, but envious tongues gave it far greater em- 
phasis than it deserved. If Grant had not been as 
successful as he was, his habits would have cut no 
figure. Who cares if other Union generals abstained 
or not? Yet those who did were in a small minority. 
With some it is about their only claim to fame. 
Lincoln, responding about this time to an appeal 
from Sons of Temperance, quizzically remarked that 
"in a hard struggle I do not know but what it is 
some consolation to be aware that there is some in- 
temperance on the other side too." 

Charles A. Dana, who had been sent by Stanton 
to spy out the Western armies and learn the truth 
of the conflicting tales about their generals, Grant 
in particular, and give him independent informa- 
tion, wrote him of Rawlins after Vicksburg: "Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Rawlins never loses a moment and 
never gives himself any indulgence except swear- 
ing and scolding. ... A townsman of Grant's, and 
has a great influence over him, especially because he 
watches him day and night, and whenever he com- 
mits the folly of tasting liquor hastens to remind 
him that at the beginning of the war he gave him 






RAWLINS AND DANA 127 

(Rawlins) his word of honor not to touch a drop as 
long as it lasted. Grant thinks Rawlins a first-rate 
adjutant, but I think this is a mistake. He is too 
slow, and can't write the English language cor- 
rectly without a great deal of careful consideration. 
Indeed illiterateness is a general characteristic of 
Grant's staff and in fact of Grant's generals and 
regimental officers of all ranks." 

Over thirty years later, with the full history of the 
war in retrospect, he gave his judgment that Rawlins 
was one of the most valuable men in the army. "He 
had a very able mind, clear, strong, and not subject to 
hysterics. He bossed everything at Grant's head- 
quarters. He had very little respect for persons, 
and a rough style of conversation. I have heard him 
curse at Grant, when, according to his judgment, the 
general was doing something that he thought he had 
better not do. But he was entirely devoted to his 
duty, with the clearest judgment, and perfectly fear- 
less. Without him Grant would not have been the 
same man. Rawlins was essentially a good man, 
though he was one of the most profane men I ever 
knew; there was no guile in him — he was as upright 
and as genuine a character as I ever came across." 1 

Dana himself, though a civilian, was a factor in the 
fixing of Grant's reputation. Stanton and Lincoln 
1 Recollections of the Civil War, p. 62. 



128 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

owed to him their knowledge of the Vicksburg ven- 
ture as the campaign progressed, for Grant was 
chary of his correspondence, sent only brief dis- 
patches, neglected expositions of his plans, moved 
silently and swiftly to his ends, ignoring the mali- 
cious work of slanderous tongues. It needed Dana's 
quick intelligence, keen eye, and vivid pen to dissi- 
pate the fogs which clouded Washington. It was due 
in large degree to his reports that Lincoln clung to 
Grant while, pending Vicksburg, politicians pressed 
him to make a change, demanding Grant's removal 
almost up to the very day the town capitulated. "I 
rather like the man," said Lincoln; "I think we will 
try him a little longer." 

It was Dana who set Stanton right about McCler- 
nand, and kept him straight; told him the manner of 
man he had in Grant, described the obstacles which 
must be overcome, and gave him thumb-nail sketches 
of the generals in the West. 

Grant trusted Dana, who lived at headquarters 
throughout the siege of Vicksburg, to keep Stanton 
posted, and turned his own attention to more pressing 
things. Dana, with Rawlins and Wilson of the staff, 
were with Grant constantly, and in his confidence, 
so far as that was true of any one, for Grant, who 
never held a council of war, harbored his thoughts 
and husbanded his intimacies: "I heard what men 



RAWLINS AND DANA 129 

had to say — the stream of talk at headquarters — 
but I made up my own mind and from my written 
orders my staff got their first knowledge of what was 
to be done. No living man knew of plans until they 
were matured and decided." l " Grant was an uncom- 
mon fellow," Dana writes; "the most modest, the 
most disinterested, and the most honest man I ever 
knew, with a temper that nothing could disturb, and 
a judgment that was judicial in its comprehensive- 
ness and wisdom. Not a great man, except morally; 
not an original or brilliant man; but sincere, thought- 
ful, deep, and gifted with courage that never fal- 
tered; when the time came to risk all, he went in 
like a simple-hearted, unaffected, unpretending hero, 
whom no ill omens could deject, and no triumph un- 
duly exalt. A social, friendly man, too, fond of a 
pleasant joke and also ready with one; but liking 
above all a long chat of an evening, and ready to sit 
up with you all night talking in the cold breeze in 
front of his tent. Not a man of sentimentality, not 
demonstrative in friendship, but always holding to 
his friends, and just even to the enemies he hated." 2 
Dana after Vicksburg suggested Grant as the 
commander of the Armies of the West. 

1 Young, vol. ii, p. 306. 

2 Recollections of the Civil War, p. 61. 



CHAPTER XVII 

CHATTANOOGA AND MISSIONARY RIDGE 

Grant would have lost no time in clearing up the 
Mississippi problem if Washington had given him his 
head. He could have captured Mobile easily with his 
exultant army, and operating from that base, have 
thrown troops against Bragg's rear, diverting him 
from southern Tennessee where he confronted Rose- 
crans. But Washington had other plans, and again, 
as after Corinth, dispersed Grant's army, sending 
troops to Schofield in Missouri, to Banks in Louis- 
iana, and to Burnside in East Tennessee. Lincoln 
would have invaded Texas to threaten Maximilian 
in Mexico, and he was set upon relieving the loyal 
mountaineers of East Tennessee. The scattering of 
Grant's army and his forced idleness gave Joe John- 
ston an opportunity to recruit his forces and to 
gather up the men whom Grant, with a mistaken 
generosity, had let march out of Vicksburg on parole, 
thus strengthening the army which, on the 19th and 
20th of September, came near crushing Rosecrans 
at Chickamauga Creek, compelling his retreat to 
Chattanooga with McCook and Crittenden, while 
Thomas with his corps stood alone unshakable for 
hours against great odds, thus saving a complete 



CHATTANOOGA AND MISSIONARY RIDGE 131 

catastrophe and gaining for himself the name he 
carried ever after — "the Rock of Chickamauga." 

The Army of the Cumberland might have been 
spared this blow had its commander, obedient to 
Grant's suggestion and Halleck's order, moved 
against Bragg while Vicksburg was in siege and John- 
ston occupied in trying to aid Pemberton, but Rose- 
crans objected then because he said it was a military 
maxim "not to fight two decisive battles at the same 
time." If true, Grant thought this maxim was not 
applicable: "It would be bad to be defeated in two 
decisive battles fought the same day, but it would not 
be bad to win them" — a flash which throws light 
on the difference between the two. Rosecrans was a 
trained and scholarly commander, ingratiating, vacil- 
lating, fearful to give offense, loved by his men, 
grieving incessantly that his hazy aims were balked 
by those above him. Grant thought him insincere 
and Jesuitical, while he thought Grant a fool for 
luck. 

During this time there was much talk about Grant's 
coming East to take command, as other Western 
generals had been brought East before. McClellan, 
Pope, Burnside, and Hooker had been found wanting 
one by one; and now Meade, victorious at Gettys- 
burg, had lost the confidence of Lincoln by letting 
Lee cross the Potomac without another fight. But 



132 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Grant discouraged these suggestions. "They have 
there able officers who have been brought up with 
that army and to import a commander to place over 
them certainly could produce no good. While I 
would not positively disobey an order, I would have 
objected most vehemently to taking that command 
or any other except the one I have — I can do more 
with this army than it would be possible for me to 
do with any other, without time to make the same 
acquaintance with others that I have with this. . . . 
I believe I know the exact capacity of every general 
in my command." 

But a far greater opportunity was at hand. In the 
rout at Chickamauga, before he knew that Thomas 
had stood firm, Dana, watching the day for Stanton, 
had wired him, " My dispatch to-day is of deplorable 
importance; Chickamauga is as fatal a name in our 
history as Bull Run." There was dismay in Washing- 
ton, which was not relieved by later tidings of the 
plight in which defeat and indecision had left the 
Army of the Cumberland — Rosecrans was cooped 
up in Chattanooga strongly intrenched, but cut off 
from supplies by Bragg, whose eager army held the 
hills above the town. He might hold out till rein- 
forced by Sherman and Hooker, who were on the 
way, but food and fuel were getting scarce, his 
horses starving, and winter coming on. His idle 



CHATTANOOGA AND MISSIONARY RIDGE 133 

army was demoralized and he seemed dazed. In 
spite of the respect his men had for him, he must 
be relieved of his command in order to escape a 
worse catastrophe. 

Stanton would have supplanted him with Thomas, 
but Thomas, who six months before stood loyally by 
Buell when offered Buell's place, now stood as loyally 
by Buell's successor. He said he would not take that 
command, though he would welcome any other. He 
would do nothing to countenance suspicion of in- 
trigue against his commander's interest. 

Then Stanton, acting quickly, created a brand- 
new division comprising everything between the Al- 
leghanies and the Mississippi except Banks at New 
Orleans; chose Grant for command, ordered Grant 
to Louisville, hurried West himself, and on the train 
to Louisville told Grant, whom he had never seen 
before, the plan he had in mind. Word came to 
Louisville from Dana that Rosecrans was thinking 
of retreat — a disastrous thing which would have 
left the rebels in complete control of one of the three 
great strongholds of the war, whereupon Grant, re- 
sponding instantly to Stanton's frantic urging, as- 
sumed immediate command of the Divison of the 
Mississippi, and simultaneously wired Thomas as- 
signing him to head the Army of the Cumberland 
and telling him he must "hold Chattanooga at all 



134 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

hazards." Thomas replied by telegraph, "We will 
hold the town till we starve." 

That night Grant went to the theater, to the great 
distress of Rawlins, who looked upon it as a time 
for penitence and prayer. At daybreak he was on 
his way by rail and swollen roads to Chattanooga, 
where he arrived October 23, "wet, dirty, and well," 
as Dana wired to Stanton, but still on crutches and 
suffering agony with his crushed leg. 

Those present at Grant's meeting with Thomas 
at headquarters, soon after his arrival, agree that 
Thomas treated him with curious lack of courtesy, 
forgetful that he was his guest as well as his com- 
manding general. Just why has never been ex- 
plained, but it is certain that throughout the war 
there was reserve between the two; for neither ever 
learned truly to comprehend the other, and with 
Thomas there was a marked absence of the cordial 
feeling which was so strikingly in evidence with 
Sheridan and Sherman. While no one ever saw in 
Thomas a trace of envious rivalry with Grant, his 
coolness was transmuted into hot controversy by 
his partisans in the great Army of the Cumberland. 

A swift change came with Grant's arrival. That 
night, says Horace Porter, who saw him then for the 
first time, after sitting absolutely silent for a while 
listening attentively to what the others said and fol- 



CHATTANOOGA AND MISSIONARY RIDGE 135 

lowing on the map the disposition of the troops, he 
straightened in his chair and began firing questions 
at his new subordinates, pertinent, incisive, compre- 
hensive, showing that he had in mind not only the 
prompt lifting of the embargo on supplies, — "open- 
ing up the cracker line," he called it, — but a speedy 
move against the enemy. He was as always eager to 
push on. Then turning to a table he wrote dispatches 
for an hour — the first to Halleck: "Have just ar- 
rived; I will write to-morrow. Please approve order 
placing Sherman in command of Department of the 
Tennessee, with headquarters in the field." The next 
day, with Thomas and "Baldy" Smith, he viewed 
the Union lines, and ordered Smith to set at once 
upon the work of opening communication with sup- 
plies. 

That night again he wrote dispatches with his own 
hand, as was his way. "His work was performed 
swiftly and uninterruptedly, but without any marked 
display of nervous energy," writes Porter. "His 
thoughts flowed as freely from his mind as the ink 
from his pen; he was never at a loss for an expres- 
sion, and seldom interlined a word or made a material 
correction. He sat with his head bent low over the 
table, and when he had occasion ... he would glide 
rapidly across the room without straightening himself 
and return to his seat with his body still bent over at 



136 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

about the same angle at which he had been sitting. 
. . . Looking over the dispatches I found that he was 
ordering up Sherman's entire force from Corinth to 
within supporting distance, and was informing Hal- 
leck of the dispositions decided upon for the opening 
of a line of supplies and assuring him that everything 
possible would be done for the relief of Burnside in 
East Tennessee . . . the taking of vigorous and com- 
prehensive steps in every direction throughout his 
new and extensive command. ... I cannot dwell too 
forcibly on the deep impression made ... by the 
exhibition ... of his singular mental powers and 
his rare military qualities. . . . Hardly any one was 
prepared to find one who had the grasp, the prompt- 
ness of decision, and the general administrative 
capacity which he displayed at the very start as 
commander of an extensive military division in which 
many complicated problems were presented for im- 
mediate solution." 1 

When Grant appeared in Chattanooga the town 
was in almost as desperate a case as Vicksburg just 
before its fall. Bragg, with superior forces encamped 
on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge only 
three miles away, could calmly contemplate the 
starving enemy below. Burnside, with twenty-five 
thousand men in siege at Knoxville one hundred miles 

1 Campaigning ipith Grant, p. 7. 



CHATTANOOGA AND MISSIONARY RIDGE 137 

to the northeast, was also in sore straits and calling 
vainly for relief. Within five days, as the result of 
swift and daring moves by " Baldy " Smith and others 
which Grant hastened, the "cracker line" was open; 
there was no further danger of starvation, surrender, 
or retreat, and Grant and Thomas were in position 
to hold the town all winter or till reinforcements 
should arrive. Shortly Sherman was there from Mis- 
sissippi and Hooker from the East. 

And now there broke for Grant the most resplend- 
ent day of his career. He had no thought of holding 
Chattanooga with hostile guns surveying him com- 
placently from neighboring heights. He would wait 
only till the forces he had summoned should arrive. 
Then he would leap out at the enemy. As early as 
October 28 he wired to Halleck: "The question of 
supplies may now be regarded as settled. If the 
rebels give us one week more I think all danger of 
losing territory now held by us will have passed away, 
and preparations may commence for offensive opera- 
tions." Sherman, having led his army three hundred 
miles through a rough, hostile country, rode into 
Chattanooga on November 15, and one week later, 
on November 23, Grant began the three days' fight 
of Chattanooga, the most completely planned of all 
his battles, a feat unmarred in its perfection and as 
a spectacle unequaled in the history of war. 



13* ULYSSES S. GRANT 

The secrecy and skill of the preliminary strategy, 
the military panorama, with its sublime scenic set- 
ting unrolled before the eyes of Grant and Thomas, 
posted on Orchard Knob, watching their armies in 
glittering pageant march to undimmed success, the 
glimpse of Hooker and his men fighting "above the 
clouds" on Lookout Mountain, the marvelous charge 
of Sheridan and Wood with nearly twenty thousand 
bayonets up to the very top of Missionary Ridge, 
mowing the enemy like wheat, the panic-stricken 
flight of Bragg's astonished troops, the frantic joy 
and tumult of the victorious Union army as Grant 
rode down the lines, blend in a battle picture with no 
parallel. 

The three days' engagement is known as "Chat- 
tanooga," the third day's fight as "Missionary 
Ridge," in memory of the culminating glory of a 
deed which has been called "one of the greatest 
miracles in military history." Dana, who stood with 
Grant and Thomas witnessing the charge, wrote the 
next day : " No man who climbs the ascent by any of 
the roads that wind above its front can believe that 
eighteen thousand men were moved up its broken 
and crumbling base unless it was his fortune to wit- 
ness the deed; it seems as awful as a visible interposi- 
tion of God. Neither Grant nor Thomas intended it. 
Their orders were to carry the rifle-pits along the 



CHATTANOOGA AND MISSIONARY RIDGE 139 

base of the ridge and capture their occupants; but 
when this was accomplished, the unaccountable 
spirit of the troops bore them bodily up those im- 
placable steeps, over the bristling rifle-pits on the 
crest and the thirty cannon enfilading every gully. 
The order to storm appears to have been given 
simultaneously by Generals Sheridan and Wood, 
because the men were not to be held back." 

It was the only battle of the war in which its four 
great figures, Grant, Thomas, Sherman, and Sheridan, 
were engaged together. Knoxville was saved at 
Chattanooga as Corinth was fought at Shiloh, Burn- 
side was liberated from his pen, and East Tennessee 
was cleared. On December 8 Lincoln sent Grant this 
telegram: "Understanding that your lodgment at 
Chattanooga and Knoxville is now secure, I wish to 
tender you, and all under your command, my more 
than thanks, my profoundest gratitude, for the skill, 
courage, and perseverance with which you and they, 
over so great difficulties, have effected that impor- 
tant object. God bless you all ! " 

Grant, starting with Paducah, had moved re- 
sistlessly, slowly at first, but gathering momentum 
as he advanced, pressing the rebel forces steadily 
toward Richmond. A sense of the inevitable was be- 
ginning to pervade the North, and to be felt abroad. 
" Thank Heaven ! the 'coming man,' for whom we have 



140 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

so long been waiting, seems really to have come," 
wrote Motley from Vienna. "... Ulysses Grant is 
at least equal to any general now living in any part 
of the world, and by far the first that our war has 
produced on either side." 1 A German writer spoke of 
Chattanooga as "an action which both for scientific 
combination and bravery of execution is equal to any 
battle of modern times from the days of Frederick 
the Great downwards." 

It happened that the country heard of Missionary 
Ridge on the last Thursday in November — Thanks- 
giving Day — just as it heard of Vicksburg on July 4. 
It was the week after the Address at Gettysburg. 
Within a fortnight a bill was introduced in Congress 
reviving the grade of Lieutenant-General, a title 
which Washington had borne. Before the winter 
ended, the bill had passed by great majorities and 
Lincoln had given Grant the rank — making him 
General-in-Chief of all the armies of the United 
States. 

1 The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley, vol. ir, p. 146. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 

It was Washburne, his earliest influential friend, and 
at times almost his sole defender, who first proposed 
that Grant be made Lieutenant-General, hardly wait- 
ing for Congress to assemble before he introduced the 
bill. When Grant learned what was doing he wrote 
at once from Chattanooga : — 

"I feel under many obligations to you for the in- 
terest you have taken in my welfare. But recollect 
that I have been highly honored already by the Gov- 
ernment, and do not ask or feel that I deserve any- 
thing more in the shape of honors or promotions. 
A success over the enemy is what I crave above every- 
thing else, and desire to hold such an influence over 
those under my command as to enable me to use 
them to the best advantage to secure this end." l 

Lincoln was worried, lest at last "the man on 
horseback " might have come, who with an army at 
his call would seize the reins of power; for at that 
time Grant was the people's hero while Lincoln was 
in rather poor repute by reason of the scanty harvest 
of his other generals, and an election was at hand 
momentous in its possibilities. But Lincoln was not 
1 Letters to a Friend, p. 32. 



142 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

kept long in suspense. " I am not a candidate for any 
office," Grant wrote his father. " All I want is to be 
left alone to fight this war out." To a friend who 
wrote him that he had it in his power to be the next 
President he replied: "This is the last thing in the 
world I desire. I would regard such a consummation 
as highly unfortunate for myself if not for the coun- 
try. Through Providence I have attained to more 
than I ever hoped, and, with the position I now hold 
in the regular army, if allowed to retain it, will be 
more than satisfied." 1 When he went to St. Louis 
from Nashville, where he made his headquarters that 
winter, he stayed with his old humble friends, Mr. 
and Mrs. Boggs, and took them in a street-car to the 
theater. 

Lincoln, who longed for reelection, not only on his 
own account, but because he felt that any change just 
then would mean disaster to the Union cause, heard 
these things gladly. They dissipated his unrest. 

Grant would have followed Missionary Ridge by 
throwing his army from Chattanooga to Mobile, 
thus clearing Georgia of the rebel troops, cutting the 
South again as he had cut it at the Mississippi, seiz- 
ing a port through which supplies reached the Con- 
federacy, and tightening the pressure upon Lee. But 
Washington did not approve, and consequently he 
1 Richardson, Personal History, p. 374. 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 143 

remained at Nashville through the winter getting his 
army ready for a spring campaign, just where he did 
not know until after he was named Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral and went to Washington for his commission. It 
was then that he determined to take command in 
person of the armies in Virginia and dispose his other 
armies so as best to conquer Lee. But before he left 
for Washington he did a gracious and great-hearted 
thing. He wrote to Sherman a letter which will live 
as long as he and Sherman are remembered : — 

"Whilst I have been eminently successful in this 
war, in at least gaining the confidence of the public, 
no one feels more than I how much of this suc- 
cess is due to the energy, skill, and the harmonious 
putting forth of that energy and skill, of those whom 
it has been my good fortune to have occupying subor- 
dinate positions under me. There are many officers 
to whom these remarks are applicable to a greater or 
less degree, proportionate to their ability as soldiers; 
but what I want is to express my thanks to you and 
McPherson as the men to whom, above all others, 
I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. 
How far your advice and assistance have been of help 
to me, you know; how far your execution of whatever 
has been given to you to do entitles you to the re- 
ward I am receiving, you can not know as well as I." 

Nor will men forget Sherman's fine reply : — 



Ill ULYSSES S. GRANT 

" You do McPherson and myself too much honor. 
At Belmont you manifested your traits, neither of us 
being near. At Donelson, also, you illustrated your 
whole character. I was not near, and McPherson in 
too subordinate a capacity to influence you. ... I 
believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just as the 
great prototype, Washington; as unselfish, kind- 
hearted, and honest as a man should be; but the chief 
characteristic is the simple faith in success you have 
always manifested, which I can liken to nothing else 
than the faith the Christian has in the Saviour. This 
faith gave you victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, 
when you have completed your best preparations, 
you go into battle without hesitation, as at Chat- 
tanooga, — no doubts, no reserve, — and I tell you, 
it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew 
wherever I was, that you thought of me; and if I got 
in a tight place you would come — if alive. My only 
points of doubt were in your knowledge of grand 
strategy, and of books of science and history; but I 
confess your common sense seems to have supplied 
all these." 

"Don't stay in Washington," cried Sherman. 
"Come West; take to yourself the whole Mississippi 
Valley. Let us make it dead sure. . . . Here lies the 
seat of coming empire; and from the West, when our 
task is done, we will make short work of Charleston 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 145 

and Richmond, and the impoverished coast of the 
Atlantic." 

But Sherman could not have his way. Grant would 
have stayed with his old army which he had organ- 
ized and knew; but he was quick to see in Washing- 
ton that he must take himself the task of facing Lee, 
with self-taught strategists near by ready to trip his 
*eet in their entangling schemes. 
His coming to the Capital, which he had never 
len, was commonplace — almost too typical of his 
lain habit — unostentatious and unknown. Wait- 
g his turn to register at the hotel, the clerk, who 
red him up for what he seemed, assigned him to a 
p-floor room and gasped with incredulity when he 
w him write, " U. S. Grant and son — Galena, 
linois." He went with Cameron to the White 
liouse unannounced, found Lincoln holding a recep- 
tion and would have run away if Seward had not 
taken him in tow. When he was handed his com- 
mission the next day by Lincoln and read the few 
words he had written in response to Lincoln's little 
speech, he was hardly audible and fumbled with his 
paper like a boy, but it was noticed that he had not 
taken Lincoln's diplomatic hint to mollify the feel- 
ings of the Eastern troops by saying something to 
ingratiate himself with the new armies placed in his 
command. 



UG ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Pictures have come down to us of his appearance at 
this time which have peculiar interest in the glimpse 
they give of his impress upon contemporaries of 
quite different typeji. Richard Henry Dana, a Bos- 
ton scholar of the Brahmin class, happened upon him 
in the Willard lobby, and thus wrote: "A short, 
round-shouldered man, in a very tarnished major- 
general's uniform came up. . . . He had no gait, no 
station, no manner, rough, light-brown whiskers, a 
blue eye, and rather a scrubby look withal. A crowd 
formed around him; men looked, stared at him, as if 
they were taking his likeness, and two generals were 
introduced. Still, I could not get his name. It was 
not Hooker. AYho could it be? ... I inquired of the 
bookkeeper. 'That is General Grant.' I joined the 
starers. I saw that the ordinary, scrubby-looking 
man, with a slightly seedy look, as if he w r as out of 
office and on half-pay and nothing to do but hang 
around the entry of AVillard's, cigar in mouth, had a 
clear blue eye, and a look of resolution, as if he could 
not be trifled with, and an entire indifference to the 
crowd about him. Straight nose, too. Still, to see 
him talking and smoking in the lower entry of Wil- 
lard's, in that crowd, in such times, — the generalis- 
simo of our armies, on whom the destiny of the em- 
pire seemed to hang ! ... He gets over the ground 
queerly. He does not march, nor quite walk, but 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 147 

pitches along as if the next step would bring him on 
his nose. But his face looks firm and hard, and his 
eye is clear and resolute, and he is certainly natural, 
and clear of all appearance of self-consciousness." 1 

Beside this we can set the portraiture of Horace 
Porter and Adam Badeau, who had lately joined 
Grant's staff: Porter describes him as slightly stooped, 
five feet, eight inches in height, weighing only a hun- 
dred and thirty-five pounds, modest and gentle in his 
manner; face not perfectly symmetrical, the left eye 
a little lower than the right; his brow, high, broad, 
and rather square creased with horizontal wrinkles 
which helped to emphasize the somewhat careworn 
look, though not an index to his nature which was al- 
ways buoyant. "His voice was exceedingly musical 
and one of the clearest in sound and most distinct in 
utterance that I have ever heard. It had a singular 
power of penetration, and sentences spoken by him 
in an ordinary tone in camp could be heard at a dis- 
tance which was surprising." His gait in walking was 
decidedly unmilitary ; he never carried his body erect; 
never kept step to the airs played by the bands; was 
often slow in his movements, "but when roused to 
activity quick in every motion and worked with 
marvelous rapidity." 2 

Badeau tells of his clear but not penetrating eye, his 
1 Rhodes, vol. iv, p. 438. 2 Campaigning with Grant, p. 13. 



148 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

heavy jaw, his sharply cut mouth, "which had a 
singular power of expressing sweetness and strength 
combined, and which at times became set with a 
rigidity like that of fate itself." The habitual ex- 
pression of his face was so quiet as to be almost 
incomprehensible; his manner plain, placid, almost 
meek; "in great moments disclosed to those who 
knew him well immense but still suppressed inten- 
sity." In utterance he was slow and sometimes 
embarrassed, but the well-chosen words never left the 
slightest doubt of what he meant to say. " The whole 
man was a marvel of simplicity, a powerful nature, 
veiled in the plainest possible exterior. He discussed 
the most ordinary themes with apparent interest, 
and turned from them in the same quiet tones, and 
without a shade of difference in his manner, to deci- 
sions that involved the fate of armies, his own fame or 
the life of the republic. . . ." But unexpectedly and 
in the most casual way he would utter the clearest 
ideas in the tersest form; "announcing judgments 
made apparently at the moment, which he never re- 
versed — enunciating opinions or declaring plans of 
the most important character in the plainest words 
and commonest manner, as if great things and small 
were to him of equal moment, or as if it cost him no 
more to command armies than to direct a farm, to 
capture cities than to drive a horse. In battle, how 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 149 

ever, the sphinx awoke . . . the utterance was prompt, 
the ideas were rapid, the judgment was decisive, the 
words were those of command. The whole man be- 
came intense as it were with a white heat." 1 

Here we catch a composite portrait of the new chief 
of the Union forces in command of more than half a 
million men, who, setting out upon the campaign 
which he meant should crush the rebel armies and 
bring an end to war, bore with him to the front these 
parting words from Lincoln : — 

"I wish to express in this way my entire satisfac- 
tion with what you have done up to this time, so far 
as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I 
neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and 
self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to ob- 
trude any constraints or restraints upon you. While 
I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture 
of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know 
these points are less likely to escape your attention 
than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting 
which is within my power to give, do not fail to let 
me know. And now, with a brave army and a just 
cause, may God sustain you." 

"It shall be my earnest endeavor that you and the 
country shall not be disappointed," was Grant's 
reply. "... Should my success be less than I desire 
1 Military History of Ulysses S. Grant, vol. n, p. 20. 



150 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

or expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with 
you." 

Lincoln had already told Grant in their first inter- 
view that all he wanted or had ever wanted was "one 
who would take the responsibility and act, and call 
on him for all the assistance needed"; and Grant had 
said that he would do the best he could with what 
he had at hand and would not annoy him or the War 
Department more than could be helped. 

It was like Grant that through the war he did not 
once complain to Lincoln or appeal to Washington, 
even when Halleck hazed him after Donelson and 
Shiloh; and Lincoln, who wrote often quaintly to his 
other generals, regarded with complacency one whom 
he could let alone. McClellan, Buell, Hooker had 
notes of admonition in which reproof was deftly 
clothed in homely phrase; but Grant had none. Lin- 
coln told Buell he did not understand "why we can- 
not march as the enemy marches, live as he lives, 
and fight as he fights, unless we admit the inferiority 
of our troops and of our generals." 1 He tarnished 
Hooker's joy in being placed at the head of the Army 
of the Potomac with a memorable letter chiding him 
for thwarting Burnside and telling him he thought it 
best "for you to know there are some things in re- 
gard to which I am not quite satisfied with you." 2 

1 Lincoln's Comptcte Works, vol. n, p. 248. 2 Ibid., p. 306. 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 151 

When McClellan wired that his horses were sore- 
tongued and fatigued, Lincoln wired back, " Will you 
pardon me for asking what the horses of your army 
have done since Antietam that fatigues anything? " l 
These are mild samples of rebukes which Lincoln 
penned. One cannot see him writing thus to Grant. 
1 Lincoln's Complete Works, vol. n, p. 250. 



CHAPTER XIX 
THE CLINCH WITH LEE 

Rebellion was in flower when Grant was put in 
chief command. In spite of his successes in the West 
and those gained by the gallant little navy, ten South- 
ern States were in revolt — nine million people in- 
habiting eight hundred thousand miles — an empire 
in extent and population, rich in resources and the 
world's respect. Europe still looked to see the South 
prevail; the South still thought itself impregnable. 
After three years of war she seemed no nearer con- 
quest than at first except to those who saw in true per- 
spective just what had been done west of the Alle- 
ghanies and along the coast. 

The Northern forces held the Mississippi strongly 
garrisoned from St. Louis to its mouth. The territory 
west of this below the Arkansas was still in rebel 
hands except New Orleans, a few other points in 
southern Louisiana, and a small post in Texas near 
the mouth of the Rio Grande. The Western armies 
having cleared the border States of Tennessee, 
Kentucky, and Missouri, except for irresponsible 
guerrilla bands, held all the railroad lines from Mem- 
phis as far east as Chattanooga and then the Tennes- 
see and Holsten Rivers to the Alleghanies. Western 



THE CLINCH WITH LEE 153 

Virginia had been transformed into a loyal State. 
The Northern forces occupied a narrow segment of 
eastern Virginia, fringing its northern border to the 
Rapidan. With garrisons at Norfolk and at Fort 
Monroe, they held the entrance to the James; and 
there were federal footholds at other points along 
the coast. The motley wooden navy had maintained 
a fairly good blockade — good enough to throttle 
cotton exports from the South and starve the mills 
and laborers of Lancashire. 

The South, though worn by war, was full of spunk. 
Her people, trusting to their press, looked upon 
Grant's achievements in the West as, at the worst, 
sporadic Northern victories; while in the East, which 
to their thinking was the real seat of the war, they 
could see nothing but unmarred success. They had 
Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville to brag 
about, — unquestioned triumphs, — while in their 
eyes Gettysburg and Antietam were merely incidental 
to protecting Richmond and preventing the invasion 
of the South; Gettysburg was a rebuff, not a signifi- 
cant defeat; Antietam (Sharpsburg, as they termed 
it) was a draw; because Meade and McClellan were 
content to let the Army of the Potomac rest upon its 
victories, without annihilating Lee or chasing him 
back home, the South called both engagements in- 
decisive; it still thought Lee invincible. 



154 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Against this unity of spirit in the South were set a 
Northern public honeycombed with rebel sympathy, 
a commerce cankered with disloyalty, a party organ- 
ized against the conduct of the government and 
Lincoln's handling of the war, a propaganda of dis- 
trust spread by disgruntled politicians and censorious 
writers disclosing ugly phases of an irresponsible 
press-fed democracy. Grant had no holiday in sight 
when he came East. 

He at once put Sherman at the head of the Division 
of the Mississippi, and on the 17th of March an- 
nounced that his own headquarters would be in the 
field and for the present with the Army of the 
Potomac, then under Meade's command. Meade 
nobly offered to give up the place which he had held 
since Gettysburg, nine months before, thinking that 
Grant might want a friend like Sherman near at hand, 
and said that for himself wherever ordered he would 
do his best, that in the work before them the feeling 
or wishes of no one person should interfere with pick- 
ing the right men. Grant did not demand the sacri- 
fice. "This incident," he says, "gave me even a more 
favorable opinion of Meade than did his great victory 
at Gettysburg the July before. It is men who wait to 
be selected, and not those who seek, from whom we 
may always expect the most efficient service." 

So Meade stayed where he was; but it was not a 



THE CLINCH WITH LEE 155 

happy case no matter how hard each might try to 
have it so. Meade, who for months had held an inde- 
pendent and responsible command, looking ahead to 
crown the work begun at Gettysburg by crushing 
Lee, was now thrown into the shade of one he scarcely 
knew and in such close proximity that, however 
tactfully the thing was handled, nothing could hide 
from his subordinates the ever-present fact that he 
was a subordinate himself. As for Grant, he found 
himself in daily contact with a proud army to which 
he was a stranger, whose officers and men through 
years of trial in camp and field were grown attached 
to their own generals. Grant's orders couched in 
general terms, trickling through Meade, must lose 
significance, and sometimes, acting of necessity in 
haste, he had to issue them direct, greatly to Meade's 
chagrin. Except that both were single-minded, there 
were few points of likeness between these two. 
"Sedgwick and Meade," said Grant, "were men so 
finely formed that if ordered to resign their generals' 
commissions and take service as corporals, they would 
have fallen into the ranks without a murmur." So, 
too, would Grant, and so would Thomas, but it is 
hard to think of many more; Sherman would have 
fallen in, but with profanity. Meade was of deli- 
cate grain and sensitive, high-spirited, confiding dis- 
appointments only to his wife. "You may look now 



156 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

for the Army of the Potomac putting laurels on the 
brow of another," he writes her; and at the end, when 
Sheridan, not he, was made Lieutenant-General by 
Grant, "we must find consolation in the consciousness 
. . . that it is the crudest and meanest act of injus- 
tice." ! But from the public Meade, while in service, 
hid his hurt, and Grant has testified that Meade 
would take another's plan, even when he did not ap- 
prove it, and carry it out as zealously as if it were 
his own. Yet Meade shrank from the responsibility 
of supreme command; in full authority he would 
hesitate. After Gettysburg, when Lincoln wrote that 
if Meade would attack Lee "on a field no more than 
equal for us, the honor will be his if he succeeds and 
the blame may be mine if he fails," Meade replied as 
it is unthinkable that Grant would have responded in 
like case: "It has been my intention to attack the 
enemy, if I can find him on a field no more than 
equal for us, and I have only delayed doing so from 
the difficulty of ascertaining his exact position, and 
the fear that in endeavoring to do so my communi- 
cations might be jeopardized." 2 

And Meade had other traits which throw needed 
light upon the history of the last year of war. His 
violent temper stirred the dislike of his subordinates 

1 Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, vol. II, p. 300. 

2 Union Portraits, p. 76. 



THE CLINCH WITH LEE 157 

and in a measure their distrust. Dana writes that no 
man, no matter what his business or his service, 
approached him without insult, in one way or an- 
other, and his own staff officers did not dare speak to 
him unless first spoken to. In action on the field and 
under nervous strain, especially when things went 
wrong, he was irascible up to the very edge of 
madness. 

It has been said that for the North the war began 
with Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Till then the time 
had been spent in training generals and armies and 
picking the right man to lead. Campaigns had been 
haphazard, a summer's fighting and a winter's rest, a 
victory or defeat and then withdrawal to recuperate. 
There had been no comprehensive military plan, no 
fixed and certain aim. Grant said the Army of the 
Potomac had never been fought through to a finish, 
and with the constant meddling from Washington, 
induced sometimes by politics, he might have said 
the same of other armies, even of his own except near 
Vicksburg and at Chattanooga; but he steadily had 
this in mind: that there could be no stable peace 
until the military power of the rebellion was entirely 
broken. In his report of the last year's operations he 
presents the military problem which he faced when he 
assumed command : — 

"From an early period in the rebellion," he says. 



158 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

"I had been impressed with the idea that active and 
continuous operations of all the troops that could be 
brought into the field, regardless of season and 
weather, were necessary to a speedy termination of 
the war. The resources of the enemy, and his numeri- 
cal strength, were far inferior to ours; but, as an offset 
to this, we had a vast territory, with a population 
hostile to the Government, to garrison, and long lines 
of river and railroad communications to protect, to 
enable us to supply the operating armies. 

"The armies in the East and West acted inde- 
pendently, and without concert, like a balky team, — 
no two ever pulling together, — enabling the enemy 
to use to great advantage his interior lines of com- 
munication for transporting troops from East to 
West, reinforcing the army most vigorously pressed, 
and to furlough large numbers, during seasons of in- 
activity on our part, to go to their homes and do the 
work of providing for the support of their armies. It 
was a question whether our numerical strength and 
resources were not more than balanced by these dis- 
advantages and the enemy's superior position." 

He determined, "first, to use the greatest number 
of troops practicable against the armed force of the 
enemy, preventing him from using the same force at 
different seasons against first one and then another of 
our armies, and the possibility of repose for refitting 



THE CLINCH WITH LEE 159 

and producing necessary supplies for carrying on re- 
sistance; second, to hammer continuously against the 
armed force of the enemy and his resources, until, by 
mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be 
nothing left to him but an equal submission with the 
loyal sections of our common country to the Consti- 
tution and laws of the land." 

The task Grant set himself was to destroy Lee's 
army. That done rebellion must disintegrate. With 
Lee eliminated the Confederacy would crumble of 
itself; there could be no formidable fighting elsewhere 
— only guerrilla raids. To capture Richmond was 
important because it was Lee's base. To occupy the 
Southern Capital had sentimental value, but in 
Grant's plan it was subordinate — not the main 
purpose of his strategy. "On to Richmond!" had 
been the Northern cry till Grant's arrival. After he 
came the aim was to get Lee. "Lee's army will be 
your objective point," he ordered Meade. "Where- 
ever Lee goes, you will go also." When once Lee 
should capitulate, Richmond must also fall. With 
Lee at large his tent was the real heart of the Con- 
federacy. 

Butler at Fort Monroe commanded, with the Army 
of the James, Richmond's main artery from the sea. 
Grant gave him a spectacular detail — to seize the 
Southern Capital and cut off Lee's supplies. Opposed 



160 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to him was Beauregard. A small force of 12,000 men 
were strung along the banks of the Potomac protect- 
ing Washington, guarding against a possible invasion 
of the North. Sigel was in command; opposed to him 
was Breckinridge. Sherman in command of Grant's 
old armies, with Thomas, Schofield, Hooker, Howard, 
and Slocum under him, was at Chattanooga ready to 
lead them against Johnston, who at Dalton, just 
across the Georgia line, had an army of 100,000 
guarding the railway center at Atlanta one hundred 
miles below. Banks held New Orleans, commanding 
the Department of the Gulf. The remaining Union 
forces were scattered among many garrisons. 

Grant's purpose, in a word, was to crush Lee and 
Johnston and smother the Confederacy, which in- 
volved the capture of Richmond and Atlanta and 
shutting off the few remaining breathing-places on the 
coast through which the South could touch the sea — 
Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington, pro- 
tected by Fort Fisher. To Sherman he gave orders 
"to move against Johnston's army, to break it up 
and to get into the interior of the enemy's country as 
far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can 
against their war resources." Banks was to seize 
Mobile; but Banks was busy on expeditions in 
Arkansas and Louisiana inspired from Washington, 
and missed his opportunity. Grant's first idea for 



THE CLINCH WITH LEE 161 

Sherman was to slice Georgia from Atlanta after 
whipping Johnston's army, and join Banks at 
Mobile, but this was subsequently changed by force 
of circumstance and Sherman's genius, and Sherman 
mowed his swath through to Savannah and then 
north through both Carolinas, whence he could press 
Lee upwards from the south while Grant pressed 
down upon the other side. " I do not propose," Grant 
wrote him, "to lay down for you a plan of campaign, 
but simply lay down the work it is desirable to have 
done and leave you free to execute it in your own 
way." 

For the first time since Sumter the keys controlling 
all the Northern armies were in a single hand, and 
when everything was ready for the word, Grant 
touched them all at once. From Culpeper, where he 
had pitched his tent, the signal flashed for every 
general to move on the 4th of May; Meade against 
Lee, Sherman against Johnston, Butler toward 
Richmond, Sigel along the Shenandoah. From that 
time till the end, Grant kept his finger on the pulse of 
all his armies. While he was hammering away at Lee 
and Richmond, he was sending daily orders also to 
every captain under his command. No other general 
since war was known had, while himself in action on 
the field, handled the maneuvers of so many armies 
scattered over so broad a territory and centered 



162 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

toward a common aim. Lee was responsible only for 
his own command. Davis in Richmond, a West 
Point graduate who had seen service in the war 
with Mexico, disposed the other Southern armies 
in the field. 

Now came a cruel test of fiber, such as few other 
men were ever called upon to face. With seasoned 
armies at his call, ample in size and skillfully dis- 
posed, Grant had prepared for every physical con- 
tingency — supplies, equipment, all the necessities 
for active service, a commonplace of war in which he 
was himself adept and for which he now had at his 
side his own superior in Quartermaster-General 
Rufus Ingalls; he had unusual knowledge of the field 
of operations gained from a study of the late cam- 
paigns, together with his Indian instinct for topog- 
raphy, a sixth sense of his which some called genius; 
for all agree that at a glance he used to master a 
strange map or catch the guiding military features of 
a chartless and bewildering country. But with all his 
foresight he had not quite foreseen the quality of Lee. 
It was Lee's vigilance which upset his first attempt to 
hammer down the Southern forces by assault. 

Moving his army quickly across the Rapidan on 
the morning of the 4th of May, Grant had thought to 
clear the tragic tangle of the Wilderness with its sad 
memories of Chancellorsville, before he fell upon the 



THE CLINCH WITH LEE 163 

enemy, but Lee, who had once fought with Hooker on 
that very ground successfully against great odds, 
took the chance of meeting Grant's superior forces on 
a field where he had already demonstrated that 
victory did not necessarily attend the heaviest 
battalions. 

The two days' battle of the Wilderness with its 
ghastly toll which Lee precipitated on the 5th of May 
brought home to Grant the horror of the path in 
which his feet were set. There were hours in which 
defeat was hovering close; disaster had never pressed 
him quite so hard; and with it comes a human touch 
which we would not forego. 

Rawlins and Bowers both say that when the first 
news reached him from the right indicating complete 
repulse and officer after officer rode up with new 
details, Grant, realizing that he faced the crisis of his 
life, still gave his orders calmly and coherently with- 
out a sign of undue tension; but when all proper 
measures had been taken and there was nothing else 
to do but wait, he "went into his tent and throwing 
himself face downward on his cot gave way to the 
greatest emotion," without uttering a word. He was 
stirred to the very depths of his soul. Not till it was 
plain that the enemy was not pressing his advantage 
did he entirely recover his composure. 1 
1 Under the Old Flag, vol. i, p. 390. 



164 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Now we come to a revealing and dramatic episode 
in Grant's career. Lee with his hard-fought forces 
for the third time lay near the Rapidan facing a hos- 
tile army on its Southern side. He had twice seen the 
Army of the Potomac, once under Pope, once under 
Hooker, pushed back across the stream, when they 
had thought to march toward Richmond, but now he 
saw an enemy which had failed to break his lines 
crouched for another spring. Grant in the opening 
encounter of his Virginia campaign, disastrous though 
it may have seemed, had forced his army forward 
and had held his advance. His loss was nearly 18,000 
men, but Lee, considering his inferior strength, had 
suffered more. The next night Grant was headed 
south toward Richmond. It is told that, as he rode in 
silence in the dusk along his shattered ranks, his worn 
and wounded soldiers saw which way his face was 
turned and rose up from the ground with cheers. His 
mute assurance of immediate advance, after their 
long acquaintance with procrastination and retreat, 
inspired them with a trust in their new chief which 
could not afterwards be shaken. As for Grant it was 
a disclosure of his soul. This reticent, shy, tender- 
hearted citizen, who shrank from giving others pain 
and sickened at the sight of blood, had without falter- 
ing kept his feet upon the road which led through 
slaughter. He felt that in no other way could the 



THE CLINCH WITH LEE 165 

Confederacy be quickly overthrown; it was the way 
of mercy in the end. 

"I shall take no backward steps," Grant wrote to 
Halleck. For thirty days he hammered at the enemy, 
rained heavy blows upon Lee's head; hurled his men 
frequently against Lee's weakening lines, engaged in 
daily skirmishes, defied the rules and precedents of 
war by frontal charges on the enemy intrenched, 
costing both armies dearly in the toll of wounds and 
death. There had been nothing like it in the world 
before. Lee was forced backwards step by step on 
Richmond, returning blow for blow, the two contend- 
ing armies leaving a trail of carnage from the Wilder- 
ness through Spotsylvania Court-House, with its five 
days' fighting and its "bloody angle" at the salient, 
the crossing of the North Anna River to Cold Harbor, 
where, with the spires of Richmond almost in sight, 
the final stand was made, and where Grant was re- 
pulsed with heavy loss after a frontal charge which 
he admitted later that he ought never to have 
ordered, but which blazes like a beacon disclosing the 
unflinching courage of the Northern volunteer, just 
as Pickett's hopeless charge ordered by Lee at 
Gettysburg still enshrines Southern gallantry. Porter 
has told how, on the night before the charge, while 
walking among the troops he saw the soldiers pinning 
slips upon their blouses, on which each had written 



1C6 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

his name and home so that his body the next night 
might not lie unidentified. 

"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all 
summer," Grant had written Halleck from Spot- 
sylvania, but at Cold Harbor his gallant army had 
their fill. After the Wilderness, Lee had not once 
accepted battle in the open, but had sought in- 
trenched positions to withstand attack. It was a 
new and strange experience for him. This master 
in the artistry of war now found his match in one 
less skilled in tactics but stronger in offense and in 
tenacity. No matter how he played his tempered 
sword, no matter how he turned and stepped with 
faultless strategy, there stood Grant facing him like 
a decree of Fate. 

At last both Lee and Grant viewing their haggard 
armies were content to change the character of the 
campaign. After Cold Harbor they never fought each 
other face to face. Grant had not been able, as he had 
hoped, to crush Lee north of Richmond, but that 
was only one link of his plan. The second was to 
throw his army to the south side of the James, seize 
Petersburg, which controlled the approach to the 
Confederate Capital twenty miles below, besiege Lee 
in Richmond or follow him south if he should retreat. 
Therefore, on the 5th of June, while the dead and 
wounded at Cold Harbor still lay on the ground, he 




From tin , <>ll, ,-i,,,ii ,,r Frederick Hill Meserve 

GRANT AT TOLD HARBOR, VIRGINIA, JUNE 14, 1864 

Sitting at Aeft of -picture is Col. John A. Rawlins, Chief of Staff; standing be- 

linrt Grant is Col. Theodore S. Bowers; sitting at Grant's left (head showing near 

•ree) is Col. William I,. Duff; sitting at right of picture is Gen. John G. Barnard. 



THE CLINCH WITH LEE 167 

wrote Halleck that he should throw his army across 
the James as soon as possible, cut off all sources of 
supply, and press the enemy from the other side. 
Swiftly and silently he marched around Lee's flank 
for fifty miles, to the southeast, eluding him com- 
pletely, and on the 15th of June, while Lee was 
guessing where the enemy might be, Grant wired to 
Washington that the Army of the Potomac would 
cross the James on pontoon bridges the next day, 
and that he would have Petersburg secured if possi- 
ble before Lee got there in much force. Lincoln wired 
back: "I begin to see it; you will succeed. God bless 
you all." 



CHAPTER XX 

FROM COLD HARBOR TO PETERSBURG 

From the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, Grant had 
hammered Lee for seventy miles and had lost over 
40,000 men, of whom 10,000 had been killed. In each 
engagement his losses had been fairly matched by 
Lee's, except at Cold Harbor; and the net benefit had 
been with Grant. The Army of the Potomac had been 
sadly shattered, but Lee's army had been shattered 
too, and Lee had fewer men to spare. Yet it had cost 
Grant some repute in Washington. While Spotsyl- 
vania was in fight, Lincoln told a crowd of serena- 
des, "I know that General Grant has not been 
jostled in his purposes, that he has made all his 
points, and to-day he is on the line as he purposed 
when he moved his armies." "He has the grip of a 
bull-dog," he told Frank Carpenter the painter; 
"when he once gets his teeth in nothing can shake 
him off"; and two weeks later he endorsed Grant's 
declaration that "everything looks exceedingly fa- 
vorable for us." It was after Cold Harbor that he 
wrote: "I begin to see it; you will succeed." But 
others had less confidence than Lincoln. "All un- 



FROM COLD HARBOR TO PETERSBURG 169 

der God depends on Grant," wrote Chase. "So far 
he has achieved very little and that little has cost be- 
yond computation." Grimes, of Iowa, wrote: "He has 
lost a vast number of men and is compelled to aban- 
don his attempt to capture Richmond on the north 
side, and cross the James River. The question is asked 
significantly, why did he not take his army south 
of the James River at once and thus save seventy- 
five thousand men?" 

Grimes had not fully fathomed the significance 
of Grant's campaign; and those who criticized him, 
because McClellan had maneuvered nearer Rich- 
mond without much fighting and without much loss, 
failed to remember that McClellan's aim was to 
invest the rebel Capital, while Grant primarily was 
after Lee, not Richmond; that McClellan had aban- 
doned all he gained, while Grant held his advance, 
and that McClellan, having neared his goal with little 
damage to the enemy, fell back, while Grant, con- 
testing every hard-fought step, had chopped deep 
into Lee's defense. If Grant had gone toward Rich- 
mond first by sailing up the James, he would have 
found Lee fixed in the Confederate Capital in the 
best possible position to withstand a siege against 
far greater numbers, while rebel troops would have 
been free to roam the State and threaten Washington. 
There would have been many months of siege and 



170 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

fighting. The easier-seeming way would have been 

harder in the end. 1 

Had it not been for blunders by the Army of the 

James, Grant, when he crossed the river, would have 

found Butler's troops in Petersburg to welcome him, 

thus sparing him ten months of siege, and Lee with 

Richmond might have fallen speedily, for Petersburg, 

twenty miles to the southeast, a railroad center on the 

Appomattox, was the real key to Richmond. When 

in the first week of May, Butler had been sent up the 

James, the plan was that he should take Petersburg 

and batter at the gates of the Confederate Capital, 

while Grant kept Lee engaged, or else by threatening 

it divert Lee from Grant's front; but Butler, ignoring 

1 I remember asking the General why he had not invested 
Richmond, as he had invested Vicksburg and starved out Lee. 
"Such a movement," said the General, "would have involved 
moving my army from the Rapidan to Lynchburg. I considered 
the plan with great care before I made the Wilderness move. I 
thought of massing the Army of the Potomac in movable columns, 
giving the men twelve days' rations, and throwing myself be- 
tween Lee and his communications. If I had made this movement 
successfully — if I had been as fortunate as I was when I threw my 
army between Pemberton and Joe Johnston — ■ the war would 
have been over a year sooner. I am not sure that it was not the 
best thing to have done; it certainly was the plan I should have pre- 
ferred. If I had failed, however, it would have been very serious 
for the country and I did not dare take the risk. ... If it had 
been six months later, when I had the army in hand, and knew 
what a splendid army it was, and what officers and men were 
capable of doing, and I could have had Sherman and Sheridan 
to assist in the movement, I would not have hesitated for a mo- 
ment." (Young, vol. ii, p. 307.) 



FROM COLD HARBOR TO PETERSBURG 171 

Petersburg, tried to seize Drewry's Bluff, under the 
very eyes of Richmond, and beaten back with heavy 
loss, withdrew into the curious pocket of the James 
known as Bermuda Hundred, where he was "bottled 
up" safe from attack, but worthless as a part of 
Grant's command. 

He could now have taken Petersburg with ease 
and held it pending Grant's arrival, for the place 
was guarded by a feeble garrison; but he assigned 
the task to "Baldy" Smith, lately transferred to his 
command, who after an assault on June 15, carry- 
ing the outside works, withdrew without pursuing 
his advantage for reasons never adequately ex- 
plained, and when the next day he was ready for 
a second trial, Beauregard had filled the town with 
rebel troops. 

When Grant approached the town he found it 
strongly garrisoned. The place, which should have 
welcomed him had Butler's army done their part, 
repulsed three days' assault; he lost 10,000 men. His 
army were disheartened because they did not enter on 
the 15th as they had hoped. After Cold Harbor and 
the crossing of the James, they had thought to have a 
respite from fighting against odds; but here they 
found themselves at once in the old desperate game. 
Lee, having learned at last where Grant had re- 
appeared, had brought his army up to Petersburg, 



172 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and on June 18 Grant gave directions that there 
should be no more assaults. 

From that day till the spring of 1865, Meade's 
army lay in front of Petersburg holding the town in 
siege, sending out expeditions, recuperating broken 
regiments, hardening raw recruits, many of them 
bounty-lured, keeping Lee occupied. Grant set up 
his tent at City Point, the junction of the Appo- 
mattox and the James. 

The next two months were gloomy in the North. 
They have been called the darkest of the war. Elec- 
tion was near at hand. Lincoln had been renominated 
on June 6, with Andrew Johnson for his mate; Fre- 
mont had been named by a little group of radical 
Republicans who thought that Lincoln was too slow; 
it was known that McClellan would be nominated 
by the Democrats. It seemed as if the Union armies 
everywhere were held in check, while early in July 
Lee had sent Early flying through Maryland raid- 
ing the country up to the very edge of Washington 
and throwing the Capital into a panic, Grant un- 
suspicious of the move till he began to get inquiries 
from Stanton, followed by frantic calls for help. 

While Grant was fighting through to Petersburg, 
Sherman in the West was forcing Johnston back 
upon Atlanta, dislodging him from one intrenched 
position and another, while he conducted a retreat as 



FROM COLD HARBOR TO PETERSBURG 173 

masterly as Lee's before Grant, and Davis having 
foolishly put Hood in Johnston's place because of fail- 
ure to arrest the enemy's advance, Sherman, after 
pounding Hood and crippling him in the last week of 
July, remained in check before Atlanta for a month. 

Lincoln, at the request of Congress, fixed a day of 
humiliation and prayer, but pending that he justi- 
fied his faith by works in issuing on July 18 a call for 
500,000 volunteers, 200,000 more than Grant him- 
self at the same time was asking for, and on the 17th 
of August, as if in response to Northern clamor that 
Grant be superseded by McClellan, he was wiring 
Grant, who had expressed unwillingness to break his 
hold: "Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bull-dog 
grip and chew and choke as much as possible." 

It was on August 23 that Lincoln penned and 
signed the memorandum which he had each member 
of his Cabinet endorse unread and which remained 
unopened till November 11 : — 

" This morning, as for some days past, it seems ex- 
ceedingly probable that this Administration will not 
be reelected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate 
with the President-elect as to save the Union between 
the election and the inauguration; as he will have 
secured his election on such ground that he cannot 
possibly save it afterwards." 

During these gloomy days Grant had his own an- 



174 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

noyances. His major-generals were at loggerheads. 
Meade was unpopular; had scolded Warren; had 
rebuked Wilson because a Richmond newspaper 
charged his men with stealing negroes, horses, silver 
plate, and clothing on a raid. There was talk of super- 
seding Meade. But the most vexatious quarrel was 
in the Army of the James. Smith was forever quarrel- 
ing with Gillmore and Butler fussed with both. Gill- 
more was soon eliminated, but Smith and Butler 
squabbled all their lives. Smith, a West Point soldier 
with a brilliant record, an engineer of proved ability, 
perhaps too much addicted to maneuvers, irascible, 
fault-finding, and opinionated, had made a fatal slip 
at Petersburg. Butler, a blustering, contentious 
politician in a uniform, bitterly hostile to the W T est 
Point regulars, teeming with ingenious schemes, and 
reveling in Gargantuan blunders, unbridled in am- 
bition and audacity, a stench in controversy, the 
Thersites of the war, when in command of troops was 
a grotesque and tragical mistake. Since neither Smith 
nor Butler had been broken to the harness, they 
could not pull together. One of them had to go, and 
Grant chose Butler for the sacrifice. Then overnight, 
after a call by Butler at Grant's quarters, the order 
was reversed. Butler was retained and Smith relieved 
from duty: just why has been in controversy ever 
since. 



FROM COLD HARBOR TO PETERSBURG 175 

Smith wrote for Lincoln's eye a letter charging 
that Butler, having seen Grant in his cups, had black- 
mailed him, and this interpretation has found a place 
in history; but Grant had weathered charges of that 
kind before without a whimper when he had fewer 
friends; he had no need to fear them now. We cannot 
credit the result to such a threat by Butler, unless we 
shall assume, as some have thought, so slimy is the 
trail of this old quarrel, that there could be no infamy 
which he would not embrace, and even then we can- 
not think that Grant, as happened later, should be- 
come his friend and write about him kindly in his 
book; for Grant was not mean-spirited. Smith's 
punishment can be accounted for on other grounds. 
His temper sentenced him to exile if Butler was to 
stay; and besides, he had whipped Grant over 
Meade's shoulders by tactlessly abusing Meade to 
Grant for the disaster at Cold Harbor, for which he 
must have known that Grant was himself to blame. 
It is far more likely that Butler's neck was saved by 
Lincoln, who, with his reelection in the balance, feared 
to let loose upon the voters of the north a Douglas 
Democrat with a war record, a grievance, and a 
poisoned tongue. Later Butler was ordered to New 
York to guard against election riots, and subse- 
quently, after his fiasco at Fort Fisher, he was sent 
home to Lowell "for the good of the service," Grant 



176 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

writing Stanton on January 4, 1865, "In my ab- 
sence General Butler necessarily commands, and 
there is a lack of confidence felt in his military ability, 
making him an unsafe commander for a large army. 
His administration of the affairs of his department 
is also objectionable." 






CHAPTER XXI 

SHERIDAN, SHERMAN, THOMAS 

Even as Lincoln penned his gloomy memorandum of 
August 23, the skies were clearing. Farragut's opera- 
tions at Mobile, which had been going on for weeks, 
were already crowned with victory, though the news 
had not come North. On September 2, while the 
Democrats in their convention at Chicago were re- 
solving that the war had been a failure, Sherman was 
entering Atlanta, whence he had driven Hood the 
day before, leading into the rebel stronghold with 
hardly any loss the army he led out of Chattanooga 
four months before, thus tearing out of the Con- 
federacy its chief manufacturing center and depot 
of supplies. On September 3, Lincoln, by proclama- 
tion, summoned the people of the North to offer 
thanks to God for Union triumphs at Atlanta and 
Mobile. 

Up to the time that Grant came East, the cavalry 
had been held in some contempt by the commanders 
of the Army of the Potomac, available for picket 
duty and for little else. " Who ever saw a dead cav- 
alryman?" was a Service jest. But Grant drafted 
Sheridan to transform Meade's cavalry into a fight- 



178 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ing force, and Sheridan, unknown east of the Alle- 
ghanies except for the assault on Missionary Ridge, 
had startled Meade by telling him that the mounted 
men should be concentrated to fight the rebel horse 
instead of doing routine guard and picket duty for 
the infantry. When Meade asked who would protect 
the transportation trains, cover the front of moving 
infantry columns, and secure their flanks from in- 
trusion, he had another shock from the pugnacious 
little Irishman, — he was only thirty-three, stood five 
feet five, and weighed one hundred and fifteen pounds, 
— who said that with 10,000 mounted men he could 
make it so lively for the rebel cavalry that the flanks 
and rear of the Army of the Potomac would require 
little or no defense, and that moving columns of in- 
fantry should take care of themselves. He hoped to 
defeat the enemy in a general engagement and move 
where he pleased, breaking Lee's communications and 
destroying his resources. 

Meade later had a peppery interview with Sheri- 
dan, in which the young man told him he could whi • 
J. E. B. Stuart, the Confederate cavalry leader, if 
Meade would only let him try. When Meade reported 
it to Grant, Grant's only comment was, "Did he 
say so? Then let him go out and do it!" Where- 
upon Sheridan went out, and on the 11th of May, 
at Yellow Tavern, within six miles of Richmond, 



SHERIDAN, SHERMAN, THOMAS 179 

whipped Stuart's forces and killed Stuart himself, 
inflicting on the Confederate mounted troops the 
worst defeat that had befallen them. Then Sheridan 
made an independent raid, broke up the railroads 
that connected Lee with Richmond, and frightened 
the Confederate Capital, penetrating its outer forti- 
fications, though that was not his aim. 

Early, returning from his raid on Maryland, con- 
trolled at Winchester the fertile Valley of the 
Shenandoah, to which the rebel army looked for food 
that fall, and Grant picked Sheridan to operate 
against him, though Stanton had objected to putting 
Sheridan in command of the department because he 
was too young. "I see you played around the diffi- 
culty," Lincoln said to Grant, "by picking Sheridan 
to command the boys in the field." " I want Sheridan 
put in command of all the troops in the field with in- 
structions to put himself south of the enemy and 
follow him to the death," Grant wired to Stanton. 
"Wherever the enemy goes, let our troops go, also "; 
and Lincoln, seeing the dispatch, wrote back: "This, 
I think, is exactly right as to how our forces should 
move; but please look over the dispatches you may 
have received from here ever since you made that 
order, and discover if you can that there is any idea in 
the head of any one here of 'putting our army south 
of the enemy' or of 'following him to the death' in 



180 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

any direction. I repeat to you, it will neither be done 
nor attempted, unless you watch it every day and 
hour and force it." 

Grant knew Sheridan better than Washington. 
He instructed him, on August 5, that in pushing up 
the Shenandoah Valley it was desirable that nothing 
should be left to invite the enemy to return. "Take 
all provisions, forage, and stock wanted for the use 
of your command. Such as cannot be consumed, 
destroy." Then in September, having put Sheridan 
in charge of a new division, and having visited him 
to find out how he lay, he gave the order to "Go 
in," and Sheridan "went in" at once at Winches- 
ter, flashing Grant that he had "sent Early's army 
whirling up the Valley." Just a month later came 
Cedar Creek and Sheridan's ride, transforming panic- 
stricken flight into resplendent victory. The little cav- 
alry leader in one summer had dashed into history as 
one of the great figures of the war and had revolution- 
ized the theory of cavalry service for all wars to come. 

"As a soldier, as a commander of troops, as a man 
capable of doing all that is possible with any number 
of men," Grant said years later, "there is no man 
living greater than Sheridan. He belongs to the very 
first rank of soldiers, not only of our country, but of 
the world. I rank Sheridan with Napoleon and 
Frederick and the great commanders of history. No 



SHERIDAN, SHERMAN, THOMAS 181 

man ever had such a faculty of finding out things as 
Sheridan, of knowing all about the enemy. He was 
always the best informed man of his command as to 
the enemy. Then he had the magnificent quality of 
swaying men which I wish I had — a rare quality in 
a general." 

Sherman had no sooner lighted in Atlanta than he 
began to think of longer flights. Grant had suggested 
slicing Georgia to the Gulf, but Sherman had a vision 
of marching to the sea. "If you can whip Lee," he 
wrote Grant, "and I can march to the Atlantic, I 
think Uncle Abe will give us a twenty days' leave of 
absence to see the young folks." Hood was getting 
active; Sherman had sent Thomas to Nashville to 
protect Tennessee. He would leave Tennessee to 
Thomas, destroy Atlanta, and move to Charleston 
or Savannah. "I can make the march and make 
Georgia howl," he wrote. He thought Hood would be 
forced to follow him, but at any rate, " I would be on 
the offensive; instead of guessing at what he means to 
do, he would have to guess at my plans." Lincoln 
and Stanton were solicitous; "a misstep by General 
Sherman might be fatal to his army." But Grant, 
though dubious at first, approved the plan. Thomas 
objected, and Sherman argued with him. He knew 
he must succeed, for if he failed, "this march would 
be adjudged the wild adventure of a crazy fool." He 



182 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

would demonstrate the vulnerability of the South 
and make its people feel that war and individual 
ruin were synonymous. Hood crossed the river 
into Tennessee, and Grant thought Hood should be 
destroyed before the march began, but Sherman 
thought it was a scheme to lure him out of Georgia, 
and Grant said, "Go as you propose." Sherman had 
perfect faith that Thomas could handle Hood, and 
having sent him Schofield's corps for an emergency, 
destroyed Atlanta with its factories and supplies, cut 
loose November 12 from all communication with the 
North, and for a month was swallowed up in Georgia 
with 60,000 men. 

Hood, forced to choose between following Sherman 
or invading Tennessee, began to move toward Nash- 
ville with over 40,000 men. At Franklin, on his way 
toward Nashville, he found Schofield with his corps 
of 30,000; made a desperate assault, and was re- 
pulsed with frightful loss. He followed Schofield on 
to Nashville and sat down before the city, his army 
now reduced to 26,000, while Thomas held the town 
with nearly twice Hood's force. Thomas had told 
Sherman to have no fear about Hood. "If he does 
not follow you I will then thoroughly organize my 
troops, and I believe I shall have men enough to ruin 
him unless he gets out of the way very rapidly." He 
now took time to organize, waiting for Wilson and his 



SHERIDAN, SHERMAN, THOMAS 183 

cavalry to get equipments; and thus put Grant and 
Lincoln to a hard test of patience. With his numerical 
supremacy they could not understand why he de- 
layed attacking Hood. "This looks like McClellan 
and Rosecrans strategy, to do nothing and let the 
rebels raid the country," wired Stanton to Grant. 
"The President wishes you to consider the matter." 
Grant had never valued Thomas at his real worth, 
and he knew that in Hood's place he would himself 
set out at once on an invasion of the North, eluding 
Thomas and crossing the Ohio. Were Hood to do 
this, it would be a heavy blow. All would be criti- 
cized for letting Sherman disappear; it might be 
necessary to divert troops from Virginia, which per- 
haps would mean a loss of months in getting Lee. 
And Grant was later justified in his belief, when 
Hood himself wrote that he then had dreams of 
conquest, defeating Thomas, seizing Nashville for a 
base, raiding Kentucky, threatening Cincinnati, and 
marching a victorious army through the gaps of the 
Cumberland Mountains to join Lee, whip Grant and 
Sherman in succession, and sweep down on Wash- 
ington with the combined armed forces of the Con- 
federacy. 1 Fate had now delivered Hood into the 
hands of Thomas and Thomas seemed to toy with 
Fate. Grant sent dispatches on December 2 urging 
1 Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. iv, p. 427. 



184 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

him to take the offensive. Thomas replied that in 
two or three days he would probably be ready. Four 
days passed and Grant dispatched a peremptory 
order: "Attack Hood at once and wait no longer for 
a remount of your cavalry. ' There is great danger of 
delay resulting in a campaign back to the Ohio 
River." Thomas answered that he would obey, 
though " I believe it will be hazardous with the small 
force now at my service." 

Nothing happened. Then Grant lost his patience; 
for once seemingly cast aside his usual restraint and 
poise. "If Thomas has not struck yet," he wired to 
Halleck on December 8, "he ought to be ordered to 
hand over his command to Schofield. There is no 
better man to repel an attack than Thomas; but I 
fear he is too cautious to ever take the initiative." 
The next day he directed Halleck to relieve Thomas 
and put Schofield in command. Thomas, hiding his 
grief, replied with dignity: "I regret that General 
Grant should feel dissatisfaction at my delay in at- 
tacking the enemy. I feel conscious that I have done 
everything in my power to prepare and that the 
troops could not have been gotten ready before this, 
and that if he should order me to be relieved I shall 
submit without a murmur. A terrible storm of freez- 
ing rain has come on since daylight which will render 
an attack impossible until it breaks." Grant sus- 



SHERIDAN, SHERMAN, THOMAS 185 

pended the order, but after two days' further 
waiting, with eager interchange of telegrams, he 
ordered Logan to Nashville to replace Thomas in 
command of the Army of the Cumberland. In his 
anxiety he started West himself, but on his way 
at Washington, on December 15, got word that 
Thomas had attacked, and then that Hood was 
routed with Thomas in pursuit. The battle of Nash- 
ville, on December 15 and 16, was the most complete 
victory won by the Union forces during the rebellion, 
a perfect battle in the eyes of experts in the science of 
war. Hood's army was so badly beaten that when 
after the pursuit he left its wreckage on the south 
side of the Tennessee, it hardly numbered 15,000 
men, and was soon disintegrated save for a few who 
turned up afterwards with Johnston's little force in 
North Carolina. Grant did not quarrel with success. 
He asked that Thomas be made a Major-General 
in the regular army, overwhelmed him with con- 
gratulations, wrote in his report that the defeat of 
Hood was so complete that it would be accepted 
as a vindication of the successful general's judgment. 
On the 10th of December, thirty days after he cut 
loose from his communications at Atlanta, Sherman 
could see Savannah. His march of three hundred 
and sixty miles through hostile territory had been a 
holiday, and on the 21st he occupied the town and 



180 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

offered it to Lincoln as a Christmas present for the 
North. Half of the task Grant set himself when he 
came East was now accomplished. Organized rebel- 
lion west of the Alleghanies had been crushed. The 
whole Southwest was open to the Union troops when- 
ever they saw fit to occupy it. 

Sherman for the moment far outdazzled Grant in 
popular esteem. The fine audacity of his accom- 
plishment had caught the fancy of the world. Lincoln 
congratulated him: "The undertaking being a success 
the honor is all yours; for I believe none of us went 
further than to acquiesce." Some would have made 
him a Lieutenant-General and put him over Grant, 
who to appearances had loafed at City Point, while 
his subordinates were winning victories. "I would 
rather have you in command than anybody else," 
Sherman wrote Grant, "for you are fair, honest, and 
have at heart the same purpose that should actuate 
all. I should emphatically decline any commission 
calculated to bring us into rivalry"; and Grant 
replied: "No one would be more pleased at your 
advancement than I, and if you should be placed in 
my position and I put subordinate, it would not 
change our relations in the least. I would make the 
same exertions to support you that you have ever 
done to support me, and I would do all in my power 
to make our cause win." 



CHAPTER XXII 
PEACE 

Grant, for the moment partly in eclipse, bided his 
time. Events were shaping the success of his grand 
strategy, which he now knew the end would jus- 
tify. His lines were tightening on the Confederacy. 
Sherman was on his way north from Savannah, cut- 
ting a path of devastation across the Carolinas; 
marching four hundred miles through winter sleet 
and icy floods, quagmires and swamps and rutty 
roads, a bitter contrast to the Georgia frolic. Fort 
Fisher, after many trials, was seized at last by Terry 
brilliantly in early January, and Wilmington, which 
it protected, the sole remaining port of the Confed- 
eracy, fell into Union hands as had already happened 
with every other rebel stronghold south or west of 
Richmond. Lee's army could no longer live upon the 
crops of the Southwest or tap its former granary in 
the Valley of the Shenandoah. The time was near at 
hand when the compressed Confederacy, upon which 
Grant was closing in, must either choke or starve 
unless Lee's ragged and emaciated troops slipped 
through the Union lines to the Southwest. No re- 
cruits were coming, and there could be no hope for a 



188 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

successful fight against the Union army, which now, 
almost encircling Petersburg and Richmond after 
months of siege, was hardening the latest levies into 
veterans. While Lee had lost his sources of supply, 
Grant had at call the teeming farms and factories of 
the North. Davis had reached the limit of his credit, 
while Lincoln still had full financial reservoirs to 
drain. 

Yet Davis could not bring himself to think his 
cause was lost; he was for goading his exhausted 
armies to fight on, and if compelled to flee, he would 
transfer the Richmond archives to a roving capital, 
and keep rebellion bristling in the Alleghany wilds. 
His patriotic selfishness would not have stopped at 
any sacrifice by his devoted men. 

City Point, with Grant's log-cabin headquarters, 
was a secondary Union Capital. Lincoln came there 
with Seward and other members of the Cabinet; 
members of Congress drifted in to look things over; 
there was an unbroken line of Northern visitors. At 
the end of January the "Peace Commission," 
Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter, came from Rich- 
mond on their futile errand, and Grant, who was a 
soldier not vested with authority in such affairs, 
asked Lincoln to come down with Seward to hear 
their tale. 

Stephens, who then for the first time saw Grant, 



PEACE 189 

has said that he was never more surprised in any man. 
"He was plainly attired, sitting in a log cabin busily 
writing on a small table by a kerosene lamp. There 
was nothing in his appearance or surroundings which 
indicated his official rank. There were neither guards 
nor aides about him. Upon Colonel Babcock rapping 
at his door the response, 'Come in,' was given by him- 
self"; and he soliloquizes: "In manners he is simple, 
natural, and unaffected; in utterance frank and ex- 
plicit; in thought, perception and action, quick; in 
purpose fixed, decided, and resolute." l 

The commissioners met Lincoln and Seward on 
Lincoln's boat in Hampton Roads. The peace they 
had in mind did not contemplate the dissolution of 
the Confederacy, which was of course the one condi- 
tion Lincoln could consider; but they learned from 
him that the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing 
slavery had just been passed by Congress, that the 
restoration of the Union was the first requirement in 
any peace, and that the way for this to be assured by 
them was "by disbanding their armies, and permit- 
ting the National authorities to resume their func- 
tions." 

The conference had its value in revealing Lincoln's 
mind. "Stephens," he said, "if I were in Georgia 
and entertained the sentiments I do, ... I would go 

1 Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens, pp. 79, 80; 401-02. 



190 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

home and get the Governor of the State to call the 
Legislature together and get them to recall all the 
state troops from the war; elect senators and mem- 
bers to Congress, and ratify the constitutional amend- 
ment prospectively so as to take effect — say in five 
years. Such a ratification would be valid in my opin- 
ion. . . . Slavery is doomed. It cannot last long in any 
event, and the best course, it seems to me, for you 
public men to pursue would be to adopt such a policy 
as will avoid as far as possible the evils of immediate 
emancipation." He said he should be in favor indi- 
vidually of the Government paying a fair indemnity 
to the owners. He knew some who were in favor of an 
appropriation as high as four hundred million dollars 
for this purpose. This was on February 3, and two 
days later, at Washington, Lincoln laid before his 
Cabinet a message which he proposed to send to 
Congress, recommending a joint resolution empower- 
ing the President to pay to sixteen Southern and 
border States four hundred million dollars in six per 
cent government bonds as compensation for their 
slaves, the distribution to be dependent "on the 
ceasing of all resistance to the National authority 
by the first of April next." The members of the Cabi- 
net were all opposed, and Lincoln seemed surprised. 
"How long will the war last?" he asked; and when 
no one answered, he said : " A hundred days. We are 



PEACE 191 

spending now in carrying on the war three millions 
a day which will amount to all this money besides all 
the lives"; and with a deep sigh he added, "but you 
are all opposed to me and I will not send the mes- 
sage." 

In the last week of March, Sherman reached Golds- 
boro, in North Carolina, and found Schofield waiting 
for him there, while Johnston with a remnant of his 
old army hung about Raleigh, fifty miles away. 

Grant, waiting for the spring campaign which he 
had planned to end the business, indulged his troops 
in desultory fighting mostly by Sheridan and Wilson, 
who with their mounted horse were cutting Lee's 
communications, raiding his outposts, smiting stray 
regiments now and then, ruffling the rebel Capital's 
defense. At last the time approached for operations 
all along the line, and Lee, foreseeing this, thought to 
anticipate it by breaking through the Union lines at 
Petersburg, and by forced marches, eluding Grant, 
join Johnston in the Carolinas for a final stand. It 
was a desperate chance, dramatically taken, result- 
ing in repulse. 

On the 29th of March, Grant bade farewell to City 
Point, Lincoln's "God bless you" lingering in his 
ears. It is written that as his wife stood in his cabin 
door saying good-bye, he held her tight and kissed 
her many times with tenderness unusual, even for 



192 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

him. From that time to the end he mingled with his 
army at the front, taking the same exposure as his 
men. 

It fell to Sheridan to strike the last swift blow, 
when on the 1st of April at Five Forks his forces 
stormed the intrenched enemy, slashing their way 
through raking fire, charging with drawn sabers and 
fixed bayonets, the little General himself leading his 
men, waving his battle-flag, praying, swearing, flash- 
ing from one point to another, till Merritt in a final 
dash carried the earthworks with a wild hurrah. Few 
battles like it ever have been waged, and none has 
since been fought on this side of the Atlantic with 
which we can compare its brilliant daring strategy. 
"It seems to me," said Porter, "that you have ex- 
posed yourself to-day in a manner hardly justifiable 
on the part of a commander of such an important 
movement"; and Sheridan replied, "I have never 
in my life taken a command into battle and had 
the slightest desire to come out alive unless I 
won." 

As soon as he was told what Sheridan had done, 
Grant ordered an assault on Petersburg, and on the 
morning of the 2d it was made, without great loss to 
Lee, who knew, of course, that after Five Forks he 
could not hope to hold the place. That night, in 
cover of the darkness, Lee's men filed out of Peters- 



PEACE 193 

burg, and shortly after daybreak Grant rode in. Then 
Lincoln came and seized Grant's hand and thanked 
him. "I had a sort of sneaking idea all along that 
you intended to do something like this," Lincoln 
said ; " but I thought some time ago that you would 
so maneuver as to have Sherman come up and be near 
enough to cooperate with you." And Grant, reveal- 
ing a fine tactf ulness, replied : " I had a feeling that it 
would be better to let Lee's old antagonists give his 
army the final blow and finish up the job. The West- 
ern armies have been very successful in their cam- 
paigns, and it is due to the Eastern armies to let them 
vanquish their old enemy single-handed." 

That same day Davis fled from Richmond and 
Ewell's troops absconded, letting the Union forces in. 
To Richmond Lincoln went from Petersburg; but 
not Grant, who was too busy keeping an eye on Lee, 
with Ord and Meade and Sheridan dogging Lee's 
trail. Lee, with his poor, starved army, was trying to 
reach Johnston, and at last, near Jetersville, Sheridan 
found him still militant, though in a sorry way. But 
Meade, who had the old idea of occupying Richmond, 
forgetful of Grant's first instructions, had disposed 
his troops with that in view, leaving a space between 
the Union lines through which Lee might escape. 
Sheridan alarmed, and having no authority to 
change Meade's plan, sent Grant a secret message 



194. ULYSSES S. GRANT 

telling him the tale and adding, " I wish you were 
here yourself." 

Grant was immediately on his way to Sheridan and 
learned at Farmsville of fighting still going on with 
some of Lee's divisions. Word came in that Ewell had 
said the rebel cause was lost, and on April 7, at 
5 p.m., Grant, thinking further bloodshed wicked, 
now that fighting was in vain, wrote to Lee asking the 
surrender of his army. There was need of diplomacy. 
Lee, not admitting that his case was hopeless, asked 
the terms which would be offered on condition of 
surrender, and Grant replied with delicacy: "Peace 
being my great desire, there is but one condition I 
would insist upon, namely, that the men and officers 
surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms 
against the Government of the United States until 
properly exchanged. I will meet you or will designate 
officers to meet any officers you may name for the 
same purpose, at any point agreeable to you, for the 
purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which 
the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will 
be received." Lee held back. He tried to think the 
time had not yet come for abdication of his cause. 
"I cannot, therefore, meet you with a view to sur- 
render the Army of Northern Virginia, but as far 
as your proposal may affect the Confederate States 
forces under my command and tend to the restora- 



PEACE 195 

tion of peace, I shall be pleased to meet you at 10 
a.m. to-morrow on the old stage-road to Richmond, 
between the picket lines of the two armies." 

Grant, who was suffering excruciating pain, sleep- 
less, pacing up and down his room, his splitting head 
held in his hands, was at first cast down by this reply, 
but wrote the next day in response: "As I have no 
authority to treat on the subject of peace, the meet- 
ing proposed for 10 a.m. to-day could lead to no good. 
I will state, however, General, that I am equally anx- 
ious for peace with yourself and the whole North 
entertains the same feeling. The terms upon which 
peace can be had are well understood. By the South 
laying down their arms they will hasten that most 
desirable event, save thousands of human lives, and 
hundreds of millions of property not yet destroyed." 
Before Lee got this letter, Lee had held a council of 
his officers, who were insistent on a new assault in 
hope of breaking through the Union lines, and Gor- 
don, leading the assault by Lee's direction, suffered 
a repulse. This misadventure, and the temper of 
Grant's note, magnanimous, yet placing upon Lee 
the sole responsibility for any further loss of life, 
resulted in a quick compliance. "I now request an 
interview, in accordance with the offer contained in 
your letter of yesterday," he wrote; and when Grant 
read the note, the pain from which he had been suf- 



196 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

fering disappeared. " I will push forward to the front 
for the purpose of meeting you," he replied; then 
riding on with members of his staff, joined on the road 
by Sheridan and Ord, he came at noon to Appomat- 
tox Court-House, near which the Union and Con- 
federate forces lay on their arms, and entered the 
brick dwelling with its tawdry furnishings where Lee 
and his great hour awaited him. 

The story has been written many times, but no 
American can weary of its telling. Lee, dressed im- 
maculately in a uniform of gray which emphasized 
his faultless bearing and his noble form; Grant, as he 
has been pictured heretofore, clad in a private's 
blouse, soiled with much riding, on which were sewn 
the shoulder straps to let his soldiers know his rank; 
Lee carrying a handsome sword, but Grant with none. 

" What General Lee's feelings were, I do not know," 
writes Grant. "They were entirely concealed from 
my observation ; but my own feelings, which had been 
quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad 
and depressed. I felt like anything rather than re- 
joicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long 
and valiantly and had suffered so much for a cause, 
though that cause was I believe one of the worst for 
which a people ever fought and one for which there 
was the least excuse." 

Grant talked awhile of ordinary things, ignoring 



PEACE 197 

the momentous theme that brought them there, and 
gently leaving that for Lee to introduce, — about old 
army times, service in Mexico, where he was a subal- 
tern and Lee Scott's chief of staff, — till Lee, remind- 
ing him that they had business in hand, said he had 
asked the interview to learn the terms that it was 
proposed to give his army. Grant told him, and they 
fell again in talk till Lee suggested that the terms be 
written out. Then, turning to a table, Grant wrote 
as he was wont to write, swiftly and clearly without 
erasure, not knowing when he took his pen what the 
first word would be, but knowing what was in his 
mind and wishing to express it unmistakably. "As 
I wrote on," he says, "the thought occurred to me 
that the officers had their own private horses and 
effects which were important to them, but of no 
value to us; also that it would be an unnecessary 
humiliation to call upon them to deliver their side 
arms." When Lee read over that part of the terms, 
"he remarked with some feeling, I thought, that this 
would have a happy effect upon his army." 1 

1 General R. E. Lee, 

Commanding Confederate States Armies. 
General: 

In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th 
inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern 
Virginia on the following terms, to wit: 

Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one 
copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be 



198 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

- Then Lee spoke about his mounted men, most of 

whom owned their horses, and asked if he should 

understand that these should be retained. This had 

not been in the terms as written out, but Grant said 

that he hoped and thought that there would be no 

further battles in the war. "I took it that most of 

the men in the ranks were small farmers. The whole 

country had been so raided by the two armies that it 

was doubtful whether they would be able to put in a 

crop to carry themselves and their families through 

the next winter without the aid of the horses they 

were then riding." So he said that any man who 

claimed to own a horse or a mule might take it home. 

Lee remarked again that this would have a happy 

effect, and straightway wrote out his acceptance of 

Grant's terms. Then there was a final touch. As Lee 

was going, he spoke again about his men, told Grant 

retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The offi- 
cers to give their individual paroles not to take up arras against the 
Government of the United States until properly exchanged, and 
each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the 
men of their commands. 

The arms, artillery and public property to be packed and stocked 
and turned over to the officer appointed by me to receive them. 
This will not embrace the side arms of the officers nor their private 
horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed 
to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by the United States 
authorities so long as they observe their parole and the laws in 
force where they may reside. 

Very respectfully, 

U. S. Grant. 

Licutcnmit-Gcneral. 



PEACE 199 

that they were badly off for food; that for some days 
they had been living only on parched corn; he would 
have to ask for rations; and Grant told him to send 
his commissary and quartermaster to Appomattox 
Station, where his men could get all the food they 
needed from the trains which Sheridan had stopped. 

Then Lee went out, and as he passed, the aides, 
who had been waiting on the steps, arose respect- 
fully. He did not seem to notice them, but looking 
over the green valley toward his surrendered army 
he smote his hands abstractedly until his orderly led 
up his horse. He took the bridle. Grant walked by 
and touched his hat, and Lee, returning the salute in 
silence, rode back to his own lines. 

That afternoon Grant telegraphed to Stanton in 

three lines informing him of Lee's surrender. 1 When 

his men learned what had been done, they began a 

salute in honor of the victory; but Grant, hearing the 

first volley, ordered them to stop. He would not add 

to the distress of a defeated foe. Thus he had stopped 

the cheers at Donelson and Vicksburg. 

1 Headquarters, Appomattox Court-House Virginia, 

April 9, 1865, 4.30 p.m. 
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, 
Washington. 
General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this 
afternoon on terms proposed by myself. The accompanying addi- 
tional correspondence will show the conditions fully. 

U. S. Grant, 
Lieutenant-General. 



200, ULYSSES S. GRANT 

The next morning he rode out beyond the Union 
lines toward Lee's headquarters, and Lee, perceiving 
who it was, rode out to meet him. They talked again, 
this time about the need for peace. Lee hoped that 
there would be no further sacrifice of life, but could 
not say; the South was a big country and time might 
pass before the war could be entirely ended; he could 
not foretell. Then Grant told him that his influ- 
ence was greater than that of any other man in the 
Confederacy and said that if he should now advise 
surrendering all the armies, no doubt his counsel 
would be followed with alacrity. But Lee said that 
he could not do that without consulting Davis, and 
Grant knew that there would be no use in urging him 
to do what he did not think was right. So Lee went 
back again among his men, and shortly home to lay 
aside his uniform. Davis was even then in flight 
toward Texas, hoping to keep rebellion there alive; 
but he was caught in Georgia on the way. 

Grant went to Washington at once. They would 
make much of him, but he would not be lionized. He 
talked with Lincoln, but declined an invitation to 
Ford's Theater, hurrying on to Burlington, New 
Jersey, where his children were at school. At Phila- 
delphia he heard of Lincoln's murder and came back 
to be a tower of strength in the grief-stricken city. 

In Washington, a few days later, he received from 




GRANT AS LIEUTENANT-* GENERAL 



PEACE 201 

Sherman the news of Johnston's surrender, and learned 
the impossible terms which Sherman had innocently 
given, terms which invaded the province of politics 
and reconstruction, and which inflamed the North 
when Stanton made them public. Stanton's an- 
nouncement conveying the information that Sher- 
man had been disciplined, and carrying a sinister 
suggestion that the hero of the march through 
Georgia was implicated in a scheme to let Confeder- 
ate officials get away with plunder from the Rich- 
mond banks, for a time made Sherman a target for 
the people's wrath. Grant was sent to Raleigh to 
cancel Sherman's terms and order the resumption 
of hostilities. Instead of superseding Sherman and 
humiliating him before a beaten enemy, he tactfully 
allowed him on his own initiative to reverse his 
course and to exact surrender on the terms Grant 
gave to Lee according to instructions from the pow- 
ers in Washington, then stole away from Raleigh 
without letting any one but Sherman know that he 
was there. 

Thus the war ended, a gentle spirit pervading the 
spent armies North and South, due in chief measure 
to the generosity of Grant, who shortly after re- 
ceived his army's salutations in the solemn pageant 
of the Grand Review crowned with the glory of his 
country's gratitude. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

A GENERAL WITHOUT HIS ARMY 

At the crest of his renown Grant found himself in 
Washington encumbered with high military rank, 
but shorn of power. The day he came from Appo- 
mattox he put himself to work curtailing the ex- 
pense of war by canceling the orders for superfluous 
munitions and supplies. He set out also to disband 
the armies, so that in a little while he, who yesterday 
had headed half a million men, commanded a small 
force of regulars, in numbers hardly more imposing 
than Scott had handled just before the war. Con- 
gress in 1866 revived for him the grade of General, 
but did not couple with it new battalions or brigades. 
There was not much for him to do except to trim the 
ragged edges of rebellion by clearing up the strag- 
glers in the South who were reluctant about laying 
down their arms. He was a stranger to the Capital, 
and had a limited acquaintance with public men. 

He had brought with him several members of his 
staff; but there were hardly half a dozen men in 
Congress whom he knew except by name, and in the 
Cabinet, Stanton and Seward were the only two 
with whom he had been closely brought in touch. 



A GENERAL WITHOUT HIS ARMY 203 

Seward, he distrusted because of his diplomacy and 
indirection. 

Stanton he disliked instinctively, and his dislike 
was aggravated by the Sherman episode. Stanton, a 
zealot, deeply versed in Bible lore, was an unamal- 
gamated mixture of strangely contradictory traits, 
domineering, superstitious, cowardly, intolerant, 
sympathetic, devoid of loyalty to his co-workers, 
though passionately loyal to the Union cause, con- 
sistent only in his fervid love of country and of power 
and in undeviating lack of tact. With Stanton, for- 
mally, Grant had to keep on friendly terms, and so 
with Johnson, who was really weak and vacillating, 
though outwardly pugnacious, and who, when enter- 
ing on his new and onerous responsibilities, could 
think of nothing more appropriate to say than to 
extol his own past record, concluding with the words : 
"The duties have been mine, the consequences 
God's." 

Grant had now to deal in strange surroundings 
with politicians whom he did not know, coping with 
questions altogether new. The kindly feeling of 
the South, stirred by his chivalry toward Lee, was 
strengthened by his stand against the threat of John- 
son to try Lee for treason in defiance of the promise 
of his parole. A super-serviceable judge at Norfolk 
had the grand jury find indictments against some of 






204 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the paroled Confederates, and when Lee heard that 
he, too, would be indicted, he wrote to Grant remind- 
ing him of the protection he understood was granted 
him and applying for amnesty and pardon. Grant 
needed no reminder. He promptly forwarded to 
Johnson, through the Secretary of War, the request 
for amnesty, earnestly recommending that it be 
granted, and sent Lee's letter to the Secretary with 
this endorsement: — 

" In my opinion the officers and men paroled at 
Appomattox Court-House and since, upon the same 
terms given Lee, cannot be tried for treason, so long 
as they observe the terms of their parole. This is 
my understanding. Good faith as well as true policy 
dictates that we should observe the conditions of 
that convention. . . . The action of Judge Under- 
wood in Norfolk has already had an injurious effect, 
and I would ask that he be ordered to quash all 
indictments found against paroled prisoners of war 
and to desist from the further prosecution of them." 

Grant was not content with written words. He 
hurried to the White House, where for once he found 
his tongue in controversy. " A general commanding 
troops," he said, "has certain responsibilities and 
duties and power which are supreme. ... I have 
made certain terms with Lee, the best and only 
terms. If I had told him and his army that their 






i 



A GENERAL WITHOUT HIS ARMY 205 

liberty would be invaded, that they would be open 
to arrest, trial, and execution for treason, Lee would 
have never surrendered, and we should have lost 
many lives in destroying them. ... I will resign the 
command of the army rather than execute any order 
directing me to arrest Lee or any of his commanders 
so long as they obey the laws." 

That was a contingency which Johnson dared not 
face. He could not hope to put his influence to the 
test against the all-pervading popularity of Grant. 
The indictments were withdrawn, though Johnson 
still denied to Lee his amnesty. 1 

In Texas Kirby Smith was slow in his surrender, 
and Grant rushed Sheridan to force his hand, much 
to the discontent of Sheridan, who greatly longed to 
lead his troopers in the Grand Review. But Grant 
had more in mind than Kirby Smith's chastisement. 
Grant had always looked on Maximilian's venture as 

1 In November, 1865, Grant gave to Longstreet, who from West 
Point days had been his friend, a letter to the President recom- 
mending Longstreet's pardon. Armed with this letter, Longstreet 
sought Johnson. " The President was nervous, ill at ease, and 
somewhat resentful . . . and at length closed the interview by 
saying, ' There are three men this Union will never forgive — they 
have given it too much trouble. They are Jefferson Davis, Robert 
E. Lee, and James Longstreet.' General Longstreet said, ' Those 
who are forgiven much, love much, Mr. President.' Johnson 
answered, ' You have high authority for that statement, General, 
but you cannot have amnesty. ' " (Lee and Longstreet at High Tide, 
p. 106.) 



206 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 



closely intertwined with the rebellion, since it had 
been encouraged by the heads of the Confederacy anc 
instigated by the European powers when Lincoln's 
hands were tied and Washington could not effectively 
protest. He held the French invasion to be an act of 
war on the United States, and thought that we shoulc 
treat it so whenever we were free to strike. He often 
spoke of it to Lincoln while at City Point, and urged 
that when the war was over troops should be thrown 
across the border to drive the French invaders out. 

He thought then that it would have a noble in- 
fluence at home if soldiers of the North and South, 
recently fighting one another, could unite in war 
against a common foe, and while he had no definite 
response from Lincoln, he inferred that Lincoln sym- 
pathized with him in this. Grant always held Na- 
poleon III in detestation and would have taken keei 
delight in his discomfiture. He looked upon him as 
the special foe of the United States and liberty. 

Though Lincoln's hands were tied, Johnson's were 
now free; and Sheridan was an ideal instrument, 
impatient to be used. In middle June Grant wrote t< 
Johnson proposing " open resistance to the establish- 
ment of Maximilian's government in Mexico." 
such a government should be established, he couk 
"see nothing before us but a long, expensive, anc 
bloody war. . . . Every act of the empire of Maxi- 



A GENERAL WITHOUT HIS ARMY 207 

milian has been hostile to the United States. . . . 
What I would propose would be a solemn protest 
against the establishment of a monarchical govern- 
ment in Mexico by the aid of foreign bayonets. . . . 
How all this could be done without bringing on an 
armed conflict, others who have studied such matters 
could tell better than I." 

But Johnson was not greatly interested. He had 
fish of his own to fry at home and found it easy to let 
Mexico alone, especially as Seward, who was always 
at his ear, was altogether hostile to the use of force, 
hoping to get everything we needed through the 
means of diplomatic notes. 

To Sheridan's disgust his cavalry could only chafe 
on this side of the Rio Grande, while Grant recorded 
an experience in rank without authority — not his 
last, for the unlovely days of Reconstruction were 
at hand. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

RECONSTRUCTION 

There is no period of our history more mortifying 
to our national pride than that just following the 
Civil War, no time when in the hour of need exalted 
statesmanship was more nearly in eclipse. We can 
now only guess what would have been the course of 
Reconstruction if Lincoln had not died; though we 
know broadly what he had in view to heal the wounds 
of war. The charity which permeates the scriptural 
phrases of the second inaugural is a precious heritage, 
and is in keeping with constructive plans which he 
proposed for the regeneration of the South, as well 
as with his words at Hampton Roads. What he did 
in Louisiana while the war was on gives us an inkling 
of what he would have tried to do in other States 
after the war was over; but the strong opposition to 
his Louisiana policy in Congress must be accepted as 
foreshadowing the hostile attitude of radical Repub- 
licans if he had sought to carry through a policy like 
that in time of peace. 

He would, no doubt, have found the people with 
him, for a time, and would have had an influence 
commensurate with his fame upon Republicans who 



RECONSTRUCTION 209 

against Johnson went almost to the limit of fanati- 
cism. The ultimate result would surely have been 
better, but at a cost to Lincoln's name. If he had 
tilted with an intolerant Congress in a time of peace, 
no matter what the outcome, we almost certainly 
should have a different Lincoln in our legends than 
we have to-day. 

Lincoln outlined a Reconstruction policy in his 
message of December, 1863, in accordance with 
which State Governments were set up in Louisiana 
and Arkansas by order of the military commander 
of the department acting under the President's direc- 
tion. This did not meet the views of Congress. In 
1864 a bill was passed providing for appointment 
of provisional governors in the Confederate States 
for purposes of civil administration until State Gov- 
ernments should be recognized. No State Govern- 
ments were to be formed until after the suppres- 
sion of military resistance to the United States and 
until the people had "sufficiently returned to their 
obedience to the Constitution and laws." The bill 
provided that the President should not proclaim a 
State Government as reestablished without the as- 
sent of Congress. It emancipated all slaves. 

The President did not sign the bill, and after ad- 
journment he gave his reasons in a special procla- 
mation; he was not ready to set aside the free State 



210 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Constitutions and Governments recently adopted in 
Louisiana and Arkansas and to declare a constitu- 
tional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in 
States. 

Lincoln would have treated each case by itself. 
He would have let the loyal citizens of a State under 
the protection of the military governor organize a 
State Government and adopt a constitution. This 
was done in Louisiana early in 1864. The constitu- 
tion adopted there abolished slavery forever, and 
while restricting suffrage to white males, empowered 
the Legislature to confer the suffrage on colored men 
according to the principles laid down by Lincoln, 
that in the reconstructed States the right of suffrage 
should be given to "very intelligent" colored peo- 
ple and to those who had " fought gallantly in the 
ranks." 

The question came up in the Senate in February, 
1865, on a joint resolution recognizing this Govern- 
ment as the legitimate Government of Louisiana. 
The resolution had the support of all the Republicans 
in the Senate except five radicals led by Sumner, and 
it would have been adopted had it not been for Sum- 
ner, who, declaring, "I shall regard its passage as a 
national calamity," prevented a vote before the close 
of Congress on the 4th of March by dilatory motions. 

Thaddeus Stevens would have none of Lincoln's 



RECONSTRUCTION 211 

plan; after the war the South must be treated like 
any other conquered territory. 

Sumner held that the President should not do the 
work of Reconstruction by military order, but that 
Congress should do it by law. He wanted Congress 
to impose indiscriminate negro suffrage on the States 
which had seceded as a condition precedent to their 
restoration. Lincoln believed that the State through 
moral pressure should be induced to give the suf- 
frage to those "colored people who were qualified 
for it." 

It is a striking fact that Lincoln's very last 
public utterance was on this subject. Speaking on 
Tuesday evening, April 11, three days before his 
assassination, to a crowd gathered at the White 
House, he commented on the constitutional question 
as to whether the seceded States were still in the 
Union or out of it, a question which during the next 
three years occupied a share of executive and legis- 
lative attention far out of proportion to its real im- 
portance. 

" As it appears to me, that question has not been 
nor yet is a practically material one and that any 
discussion of it while it thus remains practically im- 
material could have no effect other than the mis- 
chievous one of dividing our friends. As yet, what- 
ever it may hereafter become, that question is bad 



212 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

as a basis of a controversy, and good for nothing at 
all — a mere pernicious abstraction. We all agree 
that the seceded States, so-called, are out of their 
proper practical relation with the Union and that the 
sole object of the Government, civil and military, in 
regard to those States is to again get them into that 
proper practical relation. I believe that it is not only 
possible, but in fact easier, to do this without decid- 
ing or even considering whether these States have 
ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding 
themselves safely at home, it would be utterly im- 
material whether they had ever been abroad." 

In the light of history, these words seem rea- 
sonable; yet Sumner, writing of them to his friend, 
Dr. Lieber, said: "The President's speech and other 
things augur confusion and uncertainty in the future, 
with hot controversy. Alas! Alas!" And strange as 
it may seem to us to-day, Sumner was not alone even 
in that hour of triumph and good-will. 

A few hours later and Lincoln was dead. Andrew 
Johnson in a tragic flash was President of the United 
States. It was the sport of Fate that to one so totally 
unlike the gentle, wise, and patient Lincoln should 
have been assigned the task which he laid down, yet 
while the nation was still plunged in grief there were 
not lacking honest-minded men who thought they 
saw the guiding hand of Providence in what was done. 



RECONSTRUCTION 213 

George W. Julian, of Indiana, a leading member of 
the House, tells how on the very day of Lincoln's 
death he spent most of the afternoon in a political 
caucus held for the purpose of considering the neces- 
sity for a new Cabinet and a line of policy less con- 
ciliatory than that of Mr. Lincoln, " and while every- 
body was shocked at his murder, the feeling was 
nearly universal that the accession of Johnson to the 
Presidency would prove a Godsend to the country. 
As for Mr. Lincoln's known policy of tenderness to 
the rebels which now so jarred upon the feelings of the 
hour, his well-known views on the subject of Recon- 
struction were as distasteful as possible to radical 
Republicans." 

The next day, Wade, Chandler, Julian, and other 
radical Republicans called on the new President. 
Wade exclaimed: "Johnson, we have faith in you. 
By the gods, there will be no trouble now in run- 
ning the Government." Johnson thanked him and 
replied in words which came often to his lips: "I 
hold that robbery is a crime; rape is a crime; treason 
is a crime; and crime must be punished. Treason 
must be made infamous and must be punished, and 
traitors must be impoverished." 

Yet, shortly, Johnson was vehemently agitating 
policies which went much farther toward the re- 
habilitation of the old leaders in the seceded States 



214 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

than those which Lincoln had gently urged, and 
the very radicals who had hailed him as a savior 
were damning him for treason to the cause. A few 
months later, John Hay, revisiting Washington after 
a brief tour of duty abroad, recalls that the first 
words of his old friend, Harry Wise, were, " Every- 
thing is changed; you'll find us all Copperheads." 
While U. H. Painter, war correspondent, Lincoln's 
and Stanton's confidant and friend, declared, " You 
will find the home of virtue has become the haunt of 



vice. 



" i 



In an atmosphere like this, stifling with intrigue 
and passion, with an ignorant, stubborn, and loqua- 
cious President, a Cabinet jealous and divided among 
themselves, a Congress groping in the dark, the 
honest-minded, trustful, straight-thinking Grant, 
after forty years of obscurity and four years of life 
in camp, received his first lesson in politics. 

Johnson believed with Lincoln in the indestructi- 
bility of the States, but his methods were radically 
different. On May 29, 1865, hardly a month from 
the time he assumed office, he issued his proclama- 
tion of amnesty and pardon to all who would take 
an oath to observe all laws and proclamations made 
during the war with reference to the emancipation 
of slaves, excluding from its provisions, however, 

1 Life of John Hay, vol. i, p. 251. 



RECONSTRUCTION 215 

fourteen specified classes. Among the classes speci- 
fied were not only most of the men who had held 
civil or military offices of any distinction, but also 
all whose taxable property was estimated at over 
twenty thousand dollars. Thus, with or without in- 
tention, he would eliminate from the new order of the 
South most members of that intellectual, landed, and 
pedigreed aristocracy against which he had set his 
face throughout his political career. He would help 
create a new governing class, to be chosen chiefly 
from the poor-white population, who hated the 
negro with a peculiar hatred arising from condi- 
tions prior to the war, when of these two classes so- 
cially submerged, the slaves, by very virtue of their 
slavery, came in more sympathetic contact with the 
aristocracy and held the freemen in contempt. 

Johnson, obstinate, narrow, suspicious, and dispu- 
tatious, a poor white with a poor white's prejudices, 
a Southerner with a Southerner's illogical adherence 
to a strictly logical interpretation of the Constitu- 
tion, a Democrat and partisan by instinct and train- 
ing, was temperamentally incapable of cooperation 
with Northern Republicans like Sumner, Chandler, 
Stevens, and Butler, radical to the last degree and 
indisposed themselves to cooperation except on lines 
which they themselves laid down. Prior to his ac- 
cession to the Presidency he had hardly been north of 



216 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Mason and Dixon's line. His contact with Northern 
men and Northern sentiment was confined to his 
experience in Washington and with such Federal 
officers as he had dealings with while military gov- 
ernor of Tennessee. He was unfamiliar with large 
cities, had no first-hand knowledge of industrial com- 
munities, and was profoundly ignorant of the mani- 
fold activities upon which the prosperity of the North 
has always rested. The North in turn knew almost 
nothing good of him, except that he had been stoutly 
for the Union, while others in the South, of wider 
culture and under great moral obligations to the 
Union, had been either willfully or weakly disloyal. 
Fresh with all was the humiliating spectacle of his 
installation into office as Vice-President with his piti- 
ful, rambling, maudlin speech, just a few days before 
he was called so unexpectedly to succeed to greater 
power than had been entrusted to any other Ameri- 
can except Lincoln. 

A wiser man would have been humble and prayer- 
ful under such a load, striving with all his might so to 
conduct himself as to win support from the strong 
men in Congress upon whom he must depend; but 
Johnson, driven by a perverse fate, set out to force 
them to his own way of thinking without even trying 
to discover whether there might not be a common 
ground upon which all could stand while struggling 



RECONSTRUCTION 217 

with a gigantic problem. True, he might not have 
got along with Sumner and Stevens in any circum- 
stances. Neither might Lincoln if he had lived. But 
Lincoln would at least have tried. 

The one man whom Johnson went out of the way 
to make his friend was Grant. With Lincoln dead, 
he recognized in Grant, not only the strongest per- 
sonal force in the North, but the man in the North 
for whom since Appomattox the conquered South- 
erners had the highest esteem, and Johnson was 
shrewd enough to see the advantage of having Grant 
on his side. Lacking real knowledge of Northern sen- 
timent, he looked to Grant as its embodiment. He 
sought Grant out. He sent him almost daily notes. 
He formed a habit of dropping in casually at Grant's 
house or office; he made it a point to attend Mrs. 
Grant's receptions. He sought every opportunity to 
have Grant by his side in public. 

There was a degree of shrewdness in this course, 
which was in marked contrast with Stanton's tact- 
lessness. Ever since Grant's arrival in Washington, 
Stanton had taken obvious delight in asserting his 
authority, sending for Grant to come to his own 
office on all sorts of occasions and in all sorts of 
weather, though Grant was thus frequently com- 
pelled to cross the broad and muddy expanse of Penn- 
sylvania Avenue and climb painfully up the War 






218 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Department stairs; for those were the days before 
asphalt pavements, telephones, and electric elevators, 
and the headquarters of the Army was in a building 
widely separated from the office of the Secretary of 
War. 

Grant, throughout the early months of the Adminis- 
tration, conducted himself with great good sense, ac- 
cepting the President's attentions without comment 
and without committing himself to any line of policy. 
In fact, the general course of the Administration, 
from the time of the proclamation of amnesty of 
May 29, up to the time when Congress met on De- 
cember 5, had much to commend it. 

While holding that the question of suffrage was a 
matter for the States themselves to determine, John- 
son was favorable to a qualified suffrage for the negro, 
although at that time the negro had the right to vote 
in only six Northern States — Maine, New Hampshire, 
Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New 
York; and New York required a property qualifica- 
tion for the negro voter which was not necessary for 
the white. In light of all conditions Johnson showed 
breadth of view as well as cunning when he wrote in 
a telegram to Governor Sharkey, of Mississippi, on 
August 15, 1865, with reference to the work of the 
Constitutional Convention : — 

" If you could extend the elective franchise to all 



RECONSTRUCTION 219 

persons of color who own real estate valued at not 
less than two hundred and fifty dollars and pay taxes 
thereon, you would completely disarm the adversary 
and set an example the other States will follow. This 
you can do with perfect safety, and you thus place 
the Southern States in reference to free persons of 
color upon the same basis with the free States. I hope 
and trust your convention will do this." 

If Johnson had been blessed with Lincoln's tact or 
could have used the prestige of his name, who can 
say that he might not have brought Congress into 
line with some such programme, thus obviating the 
tragedy of immediate universal negro suffrage? But 
it was inevitable that Congress should have a hand 
In the work of Reconstruction, especially with Sum- 
ner the leader of the Senate and Stevens the leader of 
the House, two strong, persistent idealists and radi- 
cals, determined upon universal suffrage for the re- 
cently emancipated slaves. "Refer the whole ques- 
tion of Reconstruction to Congress where it belongs," 
Sumner cried in August. " What right has the Pres- 
ident to reorganize States?" — a perfectly logical 
and defensible position, but significant in contrast to 
Sumner's earlier willingness in April to have Recon- 
struction by executive decree so long as he supposed 
the franchise would be conferred upon the negro 
through this means. Sumner was less concerned about 



220 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the encroachment of the Executive than about giving 
the negroes in the South the indiscriminate right to 
vote. 

It was during this period of executive supremacy, 
with eight States reconstructed by executive decree 
and awaiting the action of Congress on the admission 
of their Senators and Representatives, that Grant 
was sent by Johnson on a mission to the Southern 
States in order that he might report to Congress the 
feeling among those lately in rebellion. Grant left 
Washington on November 29, 18G5, and visited Ra- 
leigh, Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, and Atlanta. 
His trip was short, but everywhere he " said much 
and conversed freely with the citizens of those States, 
as well as with officers of the army who have been 
stationed among them." 

" I am satisfied," he wrote in his official report 
under date of December 18, " that the mass of think- 
ing men of the South accept the present situation of 
affairs in good faith. 

" My observations lead me to the conclusion that 
the citizens of the Southern States are anxious to re- 
turn to self-government within the Union as soon as 
possible; that while reconstructing they want and re- 
quire protection from the Government; and that they 
are in earnest in wishing to do what is required by the 
Government, not humiliating to them as citizens, 



• RECONSTRUCTION 221 

and that if such a course was pointed out they would 
pursue it in good faith. It is to be regretted that there 
cannot be a greater commingling at this time between 
the citizens of the two sections and particularly of 
those entrusted with the lawmaking power." 

He did not meet any one, "either those holding 
places under the Government or citizens of the South- 
ern States," who thought it practicable to withdraw 
the military from the South at present. " The white 
and black mutually require the protection of the 
General Government," and the reason he gives is that 
"four years of war, during which law was executed 
only at the point of the bayonet throughout the 
States in rebellion, have left the people possibly in a 
condition not to yield that ready obedience to civil 
authority the American people have generally been 
in the habit of yielding." 

General James H. Wilson, then in command at 
Macon, Georgia, and once a member of Grant's 
staff, relates how on this trip Grant summoned him 
to Atlanta and how they sat up all night discussing 
the war and the problem of Reconstruction. In the 
conversation, while Grant " did not hesitate to dis- 
credit the judgment of Andrew Johnson nor to con- 
ceal his dislike of Stanton's arbitrary ways, he dis- 
trusted the senatorial group with which Stanton 
was associated, and declared that his own views 



222 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

were not only thoroughly conservative, but thor- 
oughly kind as to the generals and politicians of the 
South." 

The Southern people at this time looked for harsh 
treatment, especially in view of Johnson's repeated 
threats to make treason odious and to impoverish the 
traitors. They would not have been surprised if there 
had been an attempt to confiscate their property and 
distribute it among the emancipated slaves. Such a 
punishment they would have submitted to sullenly, 
and almost anything short of that they would have 
accepted as a disagreeable price for resuming their 
place in the Union. 

If at this period men like Sumner, Stevens, and 
Wade had been willing to confer with Johnson, 
and had not been radically insistent upon securing 
for the negro rights and privileges which the negro 
was not qualified to exercise, Reconstruction might 
have resulted far differently, and we might have been 
spared the sorry spectacle of a bitter fight between 
Congress and the President with the unseemly im- 
peachment proceedings. Fessenden and Henry Wil- 
son, more generous and farseeing than Sumner, were 
inclined to think the President right in all questions 
except suffrage; and Wilson wrote: "We have a 
President who does not go as far as we do in the 
right direction; but we have him and cannot change 



RECONSTRUCTION 223 

him, and we had better stand by the Administration 
and bring it right." 

Of the military commanders in the South, one of 
the most sagacious was General John M. Schofield, 
who years later became Lieutenant-General of the 
Army on the death of Sheridan. He had attributes of 
statesmanship, and might with great advantage have 
been consulted by the civilians who had to solve in 
Washington the grave problems of Reconstruction. 
With regard to the proposal of Chase, Sumner, and 
other radicals, that the negro should be given the 
immediate right to vote, a step which he contended 
rightly was unconstitutional — he wrote on May 10, 
1865: — 

"... My second reason for objecting to the propo- 
sition is the absolute unfitness of the negroes as a 
class for any such responsibility. They can neither 
read nor write. They have no knowledge whatever of 
law or government. They do not even know the 
meaning of the freedom that has been given them, 
and are much astonished when they are informed 
that it does not mean that they are to live in idle- 
ness and be fed by the government. ... I have yet 
to see a single one among the many Union men in 
North Carolina who would willingly submit for a 
moment to the immediate elevation of the negro to 
political equality with the white man. They are all, 



224 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

or nearly all, content with the abolition of slavery. 
Many of them are rejoiced that it is done. But to 
raise the negro in his present ignorant and degraded 
condition to be their political equals would be in 
their opinion to enslave them (the white citizens). 
If they did not rebel against it, it would only be 
because rebellion would be hopeless. A government 
so organized would in no sense be a popular gov- 
ernment." 

If Reconstruction could have been left to soldiers 
like Grant and Schofield, who had fought the South, 
knew its leaders, and held their respect, the result 
would have been infinitely better than that which 
came from the unseemly quarrels of civilian politi- 
cians. 

If there was ever a time when a military govern- 
ment might have proved beneficent in the United 
States, this was that time. No soldier could have 
made a sorrier mess of Reconstruction than the po- 
litical leaders who wrangled it into shape, and almost 
any one of the great Union generals could have been 
trusted to do a better job. Under a military govern- 
ment the country would have been spared the miser- 
able squabbles in Washington, the bungling attempts 
of Johnson to force upon the country policies the 
good features of which he inadequately compre- 
hended and the bad features of which were bound to 



RECONSTRUCTION 225 

raise impossible expectations among the Southern 
people, the persistence of the radicals in Congress in 
imposing indiscriminate negro suffrage upon resentful 
communities, the appointment of provisional civilian 
governors, the letting loose of a devastating swarm 
of carpet-baggers upon a proud and helpless people, 
the imposition of proscriptive qualifications which 
debarred the best men in the South from holding 
office, thus limiting those who exercised the suffrage 
to a choice of carpet-baggers and negroes for places 
of political and judicial responsibility. 

But it is idle to conjecture what might have hap- 
pened if Grant or Sherman or Thomas or Schofield 
had been in supreme control. With all their fame the 
military leaders of the Civil War were in positions of 
hopeless subordination, taking orders from civilians 
far less familiar than they with Southern necessities, 
in most cases wholly ignorant of the Southern tem- 
per, many of them actuated by vindictiveness or 
personal ambition, the best of them obsessed with the 
delusion that for the negro there could be no middle 
ground between the suffrage and slavery, that there 
could be no charm in liberty without a vote. 






CHAPTER XXV 

LESSONS IN POLITICAL INTRIGUE 

Grant would have been far better off if he had 
kept away from Washington, but it was ordered 
otherwise, and he who had commanded all the Union 
armies in the field was at the beck and call of men 
who could not lead a regiment. True, he was learning 
something of the devious ways of politics in prepara- 
tion for the baffling tasks before him; but what he 
learned was at a heavy cost. " Do not stay in Wash- 
ington," Sherman had written him in affectionate 
warning when he was made Lieutenant-General. 
" Halleck is better qualified than you to stand the 
buffets of intrigue and policy. . . . For God's sake 
and for your country's sake, come out of Washing- 
ton!" 

And four years later, in his letter to the President, 
after Grant's wretched fray with Johnson, Sherman 
returned to the same theme, this time not as a seer 
of evil but as its chronicler: — 

" I have been with General Grant in the midst of 
death and slaughter, — when the howls of people 
reached him after Shiloh; when messengers were 
speeding to and from his army bearing slanders to 



LESSONS IN POLITICAL INTRIGUE 227 

induce his removal before he took Vicksburg; in Chat- 
tanooga when the soldiers were stealing the corn of 
the starving mules to satisfy their own hunger; at 
Nashville when he was ordered to the ' forlorn hope ' 
to command the Army of the Potomac so often de- 
feated — and yet I never saw him more troubled 
than since he has been in Washington, and been com- 
pelled to read himself a ' sneak and deceiver ' based 
on reports of four of the Cabinet, and apparently 
your knowledge." 

The period between these letters had been packed 
with incident. Grant had come out of war trium- 
phantly, and with the death of Lincoln found himself 
a giant plagued by pygmies, a figure looming higher 
in the estimation of the people than he himself quite 
realized, yet led about by an ill-bred, accidental 
President, and subject to humiliating treatment by 
a domineering Secretary, only to be entangled at the 
end in a dispute between these two which raised with 
partisans of each a question of his own veracity. 

If at the close of war, when conditions were nearly 
ripe for a real welding of spirit North and South, 
Grant had been in supreme control, that work might 
have gone on to a complete fruition, for even John- 
son, in spite of all his truculence and the instinctive 
prejudice against him, commanded for a time a 
measure of support. Johnson perversely managed 



228 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

first to alienate the South by vehement denuncia- 
tion of its leaders and then the North by equally 
violent urging of his policies when sane persuasion 
might have brought North and South together in 
lasting unity of sentiment; Grant would have had 
no animosities and would have had no policy except 
the cultivation of good-will. But as General of the 
Armies, subject always to authority and military dis- 
cipline, he could not influence events and had to 
watch them drift. His ideas on the negro problem 
had been of slow growth. Before the war he had 
not been an abolitionist nor even an anti-slavery 
man, but he came to see that slavery must go. 

Twenty years later in his book he wrote: " I do not 
believe that the majority of the Northern people at 
that time were in favor of negro suffrage. They sup- 
posed that it would naturally follow the freedom of 
the negro, but that there would be a time of proba- 
tion in which the ex-slaves could prepare themselves 
for the privileges of citizenship before the full right 
would be conferred; but Mr. Johnson, after a com- 
plete revolution of sentiment, seemed to regard the 
South, not only as an oppressed people, but as the 
people best entitled to consideration of any of our 
citizens. This was more than the people who had 
secured to us the perpetuation of the Union were 
prepared for, and they became more radical in their 
views." 



LESSONS LN POLITICAL INTRIGUE 229 

And again: " But for the assassination of Mr. Lin- 
coln, I believe the great majority of the Northern 
people, and the soldiers unanimously, would have 
been in favor of a speedy reconstruction on terms that 
would be the least humiliating to the people who had 
rebelled against their Government. They believed, I 
have no doubt, as I did, that besides being the mildest, 
it was also the wisest policy. The people who had 
been in rebellion must necessarily come back into the 
Union and be incorporated as an integral part of the 
nation. . . . They surely would not make good citi- 
zens if they felt they had a yoke around their necks." 

Yet with feelings at the outset of consideration 
toward the South, with his instinctive chivalry, with- 
out natural sympathy for radical men or measures, he 
was driven by events, by the tactlessness of the Presi- 
dent, by the perverseness of the time, into a position 
where he could align himself no otherwise than with 
the advocates of wholesale suffrage for the negro in 
the South, protected if need be by military force. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

JOHNSONS BREAK WITH CONGRESS 

Johnson's programme met with no organized resist- 
ance up to December, 1865, when the new Congress 
gathered after a nine months' vacation from the 4th 
of March. Indeed, the people of the North left to 
themselves seemed to approve it. Beginning in Au- 
gust, State after State in the South, acting in accord- 
ance with the Executive's decree, had held conven- 
tions which repealed or nullified the ordinance of 
secession, abolished slavery, and in most cases repu- 
diated the debts incurred in war. Mississippi, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, fell into 
line, balking only at the President's proposal in some 
cases that the negro should be given qualified suf- 
frage. The men who sat in constitutional conventions 
and in legislatures chosen under the new order were 
of high character, willing to accept conditions. The 
"erring sisters," chastened in spirit, were ready to 
come home. It looked as though a reunited coun- 
try would stand behind the President. Republican 
and Democratic conventions in Northern States 
vied with one another in endorsing his policy and 
pledging their support. Pennsylvania, under the lead 



I 



JOHNSON'S BREAK WITH CONGRESS 231 

of Stevens, and Massachusetts, under that of Sum- 
ner, alone refused assent. Andrew and Morton, the 
best of the War Governors, urged cooperation with 
the President, expressing sympathy for the South and 
opposing unconditional suffrage for the blacks. Even 
Stanton, as late as May, 1866, expressed approval of 
Johnson's acts up to the time that Congress met. 
His quarrel was of gradual development. It was not 
until after Congress adjourned in July, 1866, that the 
open rupture came. 

With the gathering of Congress, Stevens in the 
House and Sumner in the Senate set out to organize 
the opposition. Up to that time there were no dif- 
ferences which could not have been reconciled, and 
for nearly three months thereafter nothing happened 
which might not have been adjusted with fair con- 
cession on each side. Sumner and Stevens with their 
radical proposals could not have carried Congress 
with them if Johnson had been inclined to counsel 
with the majority, yielding here and there for har- 
mony; for Sumner and Stevens wanted to go much 
farther and faster than the great body of Northern 
men were ready then to follow. And while these two 
detested Johnson, they wrangled with each other and 
in reality had slender bonds of sympathy. Stevens, 
though a partisan fanatic, was intensely practical. 
Sumner was a turgid visionary, a devotee, who in 



232 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

spite of his nobility of purpose could never quite ad 
just himself to facts. 

If Johnson had been wise enough to play on indi 
vidual traits, as Lincoln doubtless would have done, 
if he had not persisted in having things exactly his 
own way, he might have gained all his essentials and 
the story of his stormy term need never have been 
told. Reconstruction might have come about in such 
a manner as to leave lasting friendliness between the 
sections, with the Southern States restored to their 
old places in the Union and gradual enfranchisement 
of the negro as he became qualified to vote. 

Few Northern people really thought the negroes 
should have suffrage right away. They looked for it 
in time, but with a hazy expectation. On the whole 
they were amenable to Johnson's plan of admitting 
the Senators from Southern States and leaving to 
the States themselves the suffrage question so long 
as former slaves received protection in their natural 
rights. In the election held that fall, Connecticut, 
Wisconsin, and Minnesota had declared specifically 
against giving the vote to colored persons and in a 
general way the elections were regarded as an en 
dorsement of the Administration. The people were 
not concerned about the prerogatives of the Exeeu 
tive and Congress. They were interested in results and 
Johnson seemed to be doing fairly well. There had 






JOHNSON'S BREAK WITH CONGRESS 233 

been no impressive number of abolitionists at the 
beginning of the war, and there was no overwhelm- 
ing love for the negro at its close. The mass of the 
people understood that problem of the South better 
than Sumner or Garrison or Phillips. There were 
not many who would have been so ingenuous as Gar- 
rison on his visit to Charleston in April, 1865, when, 
overcome by the apparent gratitude of a crowd of 
twelve hundred emancipated plantation hands, he 
cried out: " Well, my friends, you are free at last. Let 
us give three cheers for Freedom"; and was aston- 
ished that there was no response. The freedmen did 
not know how to cheer. Like children they looked on 
emancipation as a Christmas present. Yet Sumner 
would have given them the vote at once. Early in 
December, after informing Gideon Welles in one of 
his delicious talks, that he had read everything on 
republican government from Plato to the last French 
pamphlet, he denounced the President's policy as the 
greatest and most criminal error ever committed by 
any government and solemnly asserted that a general 
officer from Georgia had informed him within a week 
that the negroes of that State were better qualified 
to establish and maintain a republican government 
than the whites. 1 So far credulity could go with a 
high-minded man. 

1 Diary of Gideon Welles, vol. in, pp. 176-81. 



ZU ULYSSES S. GRANT 

The Congress elected a year before, at the same 
time with Lincoln, had not been chosen with any- 
thing like this in view; but the majority were greatly 
interested in maintaining their prerogatives against 
executive encroachment and here they were on com- 
mon ground with Stevens. At the beginning they 
refused seats to Senators and Representatives from 
States reorganized under Johnson's plan, thus giving 
Johnson his contention that Congress was not con 
stituted properly since eleven States remained un- 
represented. 

The President's first message, written by George 
Bancroft, was temperate and admirable in tone, met 
with general approval among the people, and irri- 
tated only a few implacables in Congress. Three days 
before the Senate met, Sumner had talked for two 
hours and a half with Johnson at the White House, 
recording his opinion that the President "does not 
understand the case. Much that he said was painful 
from its prejudice, ignorance, and perversity," and 
discontinued all personal relations then and there. On 
the other hand, John Sherman was writing to his 
brother, "he seems kind and patient with all his 
terrible responsibilities." So much depends upon the 
angle of approach. 

Lyman Trumbull, once a Democrat and never a 
radical Republican, chairman of the Senate Judi- 



1 



JOHNSONS BREAK WITH CONGRESS 235 

ciary Committee, reported after the holidays a bill to 
enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau so as to 
secure for the freedmen, among other things, civil 
rights and "equal and exact justice before the law." 
The bill passed House and Senate by a two-thirds 
vote in each, but on February 19 the President vetoed 
it. Congress had never yet in all its history passed 
a really important bill over a veto, and did not do 
so now; but on the next day, February 20, the House 
adopted a concurrent resolution, reported by Stev- 
ens from the Committee on Reconstruction, that no 
Senator or Representative from any Southern State 
should be admitted to either body until Congress had 
declared such State entitled to representation. 

Up to this hour Johnson seemed to have the coun- 
try with him. All the members of his Cabinet, includ- 
ing Stanton, acquiesced. And then his fatal failing, 
intemperance in speech, worked his undoing. On 
February 22 a crowd of his supporters who had been 
meeting in a theater marched to the White House 
and he went out to see them. Members of the Cabinet 
urged him not to talk and he said he would follow their 
advice; but his pet passion overcame him; there were 
no bounds to his vituperative tongue. Goaded on by 
the crowd he cried : — 

" I look upon as being opposed to the fundamental 
principles of this government and as now laboring to 



236 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

destroy them: Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, 
Charles Sumner and Wendell Phillips, of Massachu- 
setts. . . . Are those who want to destroy our institu- 
tions and change the character of the government 
not satisfied with the blood that has been shed? Are 
they not satisfied with one martyr? . . . Have they 
not honor and courage enough to effect the removal of 
the presidential obstacle otherwise than through the 
hands of the assassin? I am not afraid of assassins!" 

In ten minutes he had lowered himself beyond re- 
habilitation in the country's eyes and had given 
Congress an advantage that they could not have 
gained without his aid. From that moment his was 
a losing cause. Later, Congress passed a Civil Rights 
Bill. He vetoed it and Congress now established a 
precedent; it overrode his veto. In June the resolu- 
tion upon which the Fourteenth Amendment is based 
was adopted, and in July a new Freedmen's Bureau 
Bill was passed, in spite of the President's objection. 
Congress had acquired the habit of defiance. Vetoes 
had become too cheap and frequent to challenge their 
respect. 

Thus Congress carried through its plan for Re- 
construction, moderate and sensible, as a whole, and 
Johnson saw himself discredited. It was not till June, 
18GG, that Stanton let the public know that he had 
opposed the veto of the Civil Rights Bill. 



JOHNSON'S BREAK WITH CONGRESS 237 

It is not easy now to put one's finger on a serious 
objection to Johnson's plan divorced from personal 
dislike of the Executive; but the fact that he had 
undertaken to reconstruct the Southern States with- 
out waiting for Congress to assemble, and had failed 
to insist upon the franchise for negroes as well as 
whites, had given his opponents needed ammunition; 
his own intemperate denunciation had done the rest. 

By the same token, in the congressional plan, as 
crystallized in legislation during that session, one can 
distinguish little to which Johnson might not with 
self-respect have given his endorsement. On the 
whole it was as good a piece of work as could have 
been expected, opening a path through which the 
Southern States might have resumed their places in 
the Union without self-abasement. The Fourteenth 
Amendment did not impose negro suffrage upon any 
State, but left that question to the States concerned, 
subject only to curtailment of representation in pro- 
portion to the number of citizens to whom the fran- 
chise might be denied. The Freedmen's Bureau Bill 
and the Civil Rights Bill in the form then passed 
contained no onerous conditions. The States lately 
in rebellion were left to the control of their own local 
affairs. 

If Johnson had then only shown a spirit of con- 
cession, the Southern question might have been set- 



238 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

tied with the adjournment of that first session in 
July, 1866. To his appeal the South would doubtless 
have listened with respect; but so long as he kept up 
the controversy and continued his assaults upon the 
motives of all who took exception to his plan, they 
would have been superhuman not to wait for terms 
more satisfying to their pride. Their tardiness, en- 
couraged by Johnson's folly, led to the deplorable 
enactments later which held the seeds of years of 
sectional strife. 

Elections to a new Congress were to be held in the 
autumn following adjournment of the first session, 
and there was nothing to it for Johnson, with his pas- 
sion for dispute, except to utilize the opportunity to 
force the North to his own way of thinking. Late in 
August he set out on the " swing around the circle," 
taking Grant, Farragut, and several members of the 
Cabinet on his train. 

Grant did not want to go. He had for months been 
drifting farther and farther away from Johnson. But 
he was indispensable to Johnson's purpose. In the 
controversy between the President and Congress it 
had been assumed both North and South that his 
sympathies were with Johnson and when he now 
left Washington in Johnson's company and appeared 
day after day on the same platform with him, the 
suspicion was strengthened: but this was all a part 



JOHNSON'S BREAK WITH CONGRESS 239 

of Johnson's cunning scheme, conceived by Seward, 
it is said. 

Johnson left a vituperative trail in every city of 
importance between Washington and Chicago. At 
Cleveland he was manifestly in his cups. And he was 
hardly started on his trip before the country knew 
that he was lost. The most praiseworthy cause could 
not have weathered such a champion. The people 
were humiliated and ashamed. Grant seized the 
earliest opportunity to plead sickness, quit the party, 
and return to Washington. He had seen Johnson at 
his worst; and he could never hold him in respect 
again. 

Already the relations between Johnson and Stan- 
ton were badly strained Stanton was loath to carry 
out Johnson's orders interfering with the work of the 
district commanders in the South, and the Presi- 
dent was soon hunting for some one who would be 
amenable. 

Uprisings in the South seemed imminent. There 
had been riots in New Orleans two days after the ad- 
journment of Congress, July 28, and Grant began to 
look for trouble. On October 12 he wrote confiden- 
tially to Sheridan, who had quit Texas and was in 
command at New Orleans : " I regret to say that since 
the unfortunate difference between the President and 
Congress, the former becomes more violent with the 



UO ULYSSES S. GRANT 

opposition he meets with, until now but few people 
who were loyal to the Government during the rebel- 
lion seem to have any influence with him. None have 
unless they join in a crusade against Congress and 
declare their acts, the principal ones, illegal; and in- 
deed I much fear that we are fast approaching the 
time when he will want to declare the body itself 
unconstitutional and revolutionary. Commanders in 
Southern States will have to take care and see if a 
crisis does come that no armed headway can be made 
against the Union." 

The result of the elections was cumulative in its 
irritating effect upon the discredited Johnson. Maine 
and Vermont in September, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Indiana, and Iowa in October, and all the other 
Northern States in November gave great majorities 
against the Administration. Only Maryland, Dela- 
ware, and Kentucky were Democratic. The Repub- 
licans had a larger majority in House and Senate than 
ever, amply more than the two thirds needed to 
override a veto of any Reconstruction measure they 
might see fit to pass. 

Another man in Johnson's place would have ac- 
cepted the result of the elections as determining the 
question of Reconstruction so far as his administra- 
tion was concerned, for the Congress just chosen 
would not expire until his own term ended. Only 






JOHNSON'S BREAK WITH CONGRESS 241 

colossal egotism or abounding ignorance could have 
prompted opposition to so overwhelming a majority, 
and only devotion to an all-absorbing moral issue 
could have excused it. But Johnson fatuously under- 
took to thwart the will of Congress, with sorry results 
both to himself and to the section he set out to serve. 
The Southern leaders as a rule would reluctantly 
have taken the Fourteenth Amendment had it not 
been for Johnson's influence, but owing to his encour- 
agement, every one of the eleven seceding States in 
the period between August, 1866, and February, 
1867, refused to ratify. As a practical necessity, 
therefore, Congress was forced to adopt more drastic 
measures to bring the recalcitrants into line. It was 
intolerable that the Southern States, who before the 
war had enjoyed representation in Congress for only 
three fifths of the number of their slaves, should, as 
a result of insurrection and defeat, come back into 
the Union with representation based on the entire 
number of citizens, both white and black, while only 
the whites had the privilege of the vote, thus giving 
the whites of the South, in spite of the terrible loss 
in Northern lives and treasure during the rebellion 
a greater proportionate representation than ever in 
the House and the Electoral College. The Southern 
leaders would have seen this had they been let alone. 
But Johnson blocked the way. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

AT ODDS WITH JOHNSON 

Grant was entirely out of sympathy with Johnson 
by this time, though as a soldier under orders he did 
not publicly take issue with his official chief. His im- 
mediate superior, Stanton, by the fall of 1866, had 
gone over boldly to the radicals in Congress, with 
whom for months he had already been in secret cor- 
respondence, so that Grant was in a trying place. We 
have seen how he wrote to Sheridan, but outwardly he 
maintained a reticence so complete that only John- 
son and some members of the Cabinet suspected how 
he really felt. In his testimony before the House 
Judiciary Committee on July 18, 1867, after the 
quarrel had progressed much farther, he thus ex- 
plained himself : — 

" I have always been attentive to my own duties, 
and tried not to interfere with other people's. I was 
always ready to originate matters pertaining to the 
Army, but I was never ready to originate matters 
pertaining to the civil government of the United 
States. When I was asked my opinion about what 
had been done I was willing to give it. I originated no 
plan and suggested no plan for civil government. I 



AT ODDS WITH JOHNSON 243 

only gave my views on measures after they had been 
originated. I simply expressed an anxiety that some- 
thing should be done to give some sort of control 
down there. There were no governments there when 
the war was over and I wanted to see some govern- 
ments established and wanted to see it done quickly. 
I did not pretend to say how it should be done or in 
what form." 

Riots were threatened in Baltimore at election 
time in November, 1866. It was a controversy be- 
tween rival boards of police commissioners, one 
appointed by the Democratic Governor, Swann, 
the other claiming independent authority. Johnson 
wanted to send troops to help the Governor to up- 
hold his own commissioners. He had with him all the 
Cabinet but Stanton. Grant protested earnestly, and 
when he found the President persisting, he wrote an 
official letter to the Secretary of War calling attention 
to the law which specified the only circumstances in 
which the military forces of the United States could 
be called out to interfere in state affairs. The troops 
were not sent and Grant, by his personal influence in 
two visits to Baltimore, persuaded the contending 
parties to leave their quarrel to the courts. If John- 
son had prevailed, the Federal troops would have 
been used against the party which had been loyal 
to the Union and in behalf of former Confederates. 



244 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Grant thought he saw here a disloyal intent. What- 
ever its purpose, he saved an ugly situation. 

Maximilian was still in Mexico. Napoleon, yield- 
ing to persistent pressure and convinced at last of the 
futility of his designs, had ordered the French troops 
withdrawn. He had good reason for this change of 
policy. Grant two years before had sent Schofield to 
Texas with secret orders to organize if necessary an 
army of American volunteers, for enrollment under 
the Liberal Government in Mexico, to drive out the 
invaders. He thought that Seward had befogged the 
issue and that if he had a partiality, it leaned toward 
imperial success. Grant was insistent on enforcing 
the Monroe Doctrine, and kept the Minister from 
France in Washington informed of how he felt. Na- 
poleon knew that Grant would almost certainly in a 
few months be President, clothed with authority 
which now he lacked. At last Seward sent Schofield 
to Paris with instructions to " get your legs under 
Napoleon's mahogany and tell him he must get out 
of Mexico." So the French army quit, but Maxi- 
milian with quixotic chivalry remained. His fragile 
empire was already crumbling, and the republicai 
government which we had recognized was coming tc 
its own. There was no special reason why Grant 01 
any other army officer should go to Mexico; yet in 
the middle of October, just as he had become annoy- 



AT ODDS WITH JOHNSON 245 

ingly unsympathetic with Johnson's policies, a pre- 
text was found to send him there. 

Campbell, who had been appointed Minister a long 
while before and had dawdled the intervening time 
away, was due at last to enter on his service, and John- 
son ordered Grant to accompany him "to give the 
Minister the benefit of his advice in carrying out the 
instructions of the Secretary of State." At the same 
time Sherman, who had been outspoken in favor of 
Administration policies, was ordered to Washington, 
the intention being to detail him to Grant's military 
duties. 

To the amazement of Johnson and Seward, Grant 
refused to go. He had divined the purpose of the 
mission. Johnson renewed the order in a day or two. 
Grant again declined, this time in writing. A little 
later he was summoned to a Cabinet meeting. The 
Secretary of State read him detailed instructions for 
his mission as if nothing unusual had occurred. Grant 
was not disturbed. He told the President and the 
Cabinet that he did not intend to go. Turning to the 
Attorney-General, Johnson exclaimed: "Mr. Attor- 
I ney-General, is there any reason why General Grant 
should not obey my orders? Is he in any way in- 
eligible to this position? " " I can answer that ques- 
tion, Mr. President," said Grant, " without referring 
to the Attorney-General. I am an American citizen 



246 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and eligible to any office to which any American is 
eligible. I am an officer of the Army and bound to 
obey your military orders. But this is a civil office, 
a purely diplomatic duty that you offer me, and I 
cannot be compelled to undertake it." No one re- 
plied and Grant left the room. 

Even after this the President persisted. Stanton 
was told to ask Grant to proceed to Mexico; and 
Grant had to write another letter declining to go. 

When Sherman arrived in Washington, he reported 
first to Grant, who told him what the President had 
in mind. The rest of the story, as Sherman tells it 
his " Memoirs," sheds an interesting light upon the 
characters of Grant and Johnson. The President's 
plain misconstruction of Grant's attitude helps to 
illuminate the controversy between the two over a 
year later, when the issue of veracity became acute. 

" General Grant," says Sherman, " denied the right 
of the President to order him on a diplomatic mission 
unattended by troops; said that he had thought the 
matter over, would disobey the order and stand the 
consequences. He manifested much feeling and said 
it was a plot to get rid of him. I then went to Presi- 
dent Johnson, . . . who said that General Grant was 
about to go to Mexico on business of importance and 
he wanted me at Washington to command the Army 
in General Grant's absence. I then informed him that 



AT ODDS WITH JOHNSON 247 

General Grant would not go and he seemed amazed; 
said . . . that Mr. Campbell had been accredited to 
Juarez . . . and the fact that he was accompanied by 
so distinguished a soldier would emphasize the act of 
the United States. I simply reiterated that General 
Grant would not go and that he, Mr. Johnson, could 
not afford to quarrel with him at that time." Sher- 
man suggested that if the real object were to put 
Campbell in official communication with Juarez, the 
bill could be filled better by Hancock or Sheridan, 
and that he himself could be sooner spared than 
Grant, who was engaged in the most delicate and 
difficult task of reorganizing the Army under the 
Act of July 28, 1866. " Certainly," answered the 
President ; " if you will go, that will answer perfectly." 

So Sherman went to Mexico with Campbell. As 
he sailed from New York Harbor on the Susque- 
hanna, he turned to the captain and said: "My mis- 
sion is already ended. By substituting myself I have 
prevented a serious quarrel between the Adminis- 
tration and Grant." As might have been expected, 
his journey, from which he returned three months 
later, was a waste of time. 

When the Thirty-ninth Congress met for its second 
session on December 5, 1866, the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment had not yet been ratified. Congress had voted 
that no Senator or Representative should be ad- 






248 ULYSSES S. GRAXT 

raitted from either of the eleven States which had 
been in insurrection until the right of such State to 
representation had been agreed to by both Houses 
of Congress. A bill proposed by Stevens, and re- 
ported from the Committee on Reconstruction in 
the closing days of the session, providing for the re- 
admission of the seceding States upon the accept- 
ance by them of the Fourteenth amendment, had 
not become a law. 

Congress turned at once to Reconstruction meas- 
ures. Stevens promptly introduced a bill providing for 
valid governments in the States still unreconstructed, 
on the basis of negro suffrage and white disfranchise- 
ment. He was goaded to vindictiveness by the con- 
tumacy of Southern Legislatures and Johnson's 
stubbornness, while many who had been inclined to 
moderation six months before were now ready to 
take the verdict of the elections as justifying meas- 
ures as radical as might be urged. The bill, which be- 
came known as the Reconstruction Act, brushed 
aside the State Governments created through execu- 
tive decree which had been in feeble operation for 
many months, divided their territory into five mili- 
tary districts, each to be commanded by an army 
officer of the rank at least of Brigadier-General, who 
was to be designated by the General of the Army. 
This bill, unpalatable to a numerous minority of his 



AT ODDS WITH JOHNSON 249 

own party, because it provided for indeterminate 
military rule, was whipped through the House by 
Stevens with a scourge of taunts which brought the 
tardy into line. While the bill was pending in the 
Senate, Grant quietly let it leak out that he would 
rather leave the designation of district commanders 
to the President than to the General of the Army — 
and in this form the bill became law over the Presi- 
dent's veto on the 2d of March. 

As finally enacted, the law provided that Senators 
and Representatives from a seceded State should be 
admitted to seats in Congress on the adoption of a 
constitution providing among other things for uni- 
versal suffrage without discrimination as to color and 
the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was 
left to the military commander in each district to 
take the initiative in summoning a convention to pave 
the way for Reconstruction. 

While the struggle between the President and Con- 
gress had been going on, Johnson had arbitrarily re- 
moved several thousand Republican office-holders 
and filled their places with his own sympathizers. To 
meet this, Congress, on March 2, passed over his veto 
the Tenure of Office Act, which took away from him 
the power, without the Senate's consent, to remove 
office-holders originally confirmed by the Senate. His 
disregard of this act in Stanton's case brought on the 



250 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

series of events leading up to his impeachment; yet 
it is a striking fact that Stanton himself, though not 
then on cordial terms with Johnson, joined with 
Seward in helping to frame the veto measure which 
Johnson signed. 

Thus the Thirty-ninth Congress, chosen six months 
before the close of the war and meeting for the first 
time nine months after Lincoln's death, placed on the 
statutes over his successor's veto radical measures 
for the reconstruction of the South which Lincoln 
would not have stood for and which only a small 
minority of its own membership would have favored 
when it first assembled — measures which ushered 
in a period of racial and sectional hate, of violence and 
blood-letting, of extravagance, corruption, and na- 
tional degeneracy for which our history presents no 
parallel, not even in the stress of civil war. Grant, 
though the first citizen of the Republic, already set 
apart for the chief magistracy, had the habit of mili- 
tary subordination so firmly fixed and was so lacking 
in political experience that he had little influence on 
legislation. He had to watch the current drift, un- 
conscious, for all that the records show, that he was 
fated at his entrance upon the Presidency to find a 
problem confronting him which the wisest and most 
masterful of statesmen could hardly hope to solve. 
He had no sympathy with Johnson, Stevens, or 



AT ODDS WITH JOHNSON 251 

Sumner in their quarrels. He owed them no grati- 
tude for the hateful legacy bequeathed to him by their 
mistaken zeal. 

The new Congress, which met on March 4 in 
accordance with a law enacted to curb Johnson's 
control, stirred Johnson's wrath still further by leg- 
islation stripping him of authority under the Recon- 
struction acts. Stanton approved this new legisla- 
tion. There is evidence that he drafted its principal 
features. He was outspoken in Cabinet meetings 
against the President and his associates in the Ad- 
ministration. His breach with Johnson was complete. 
Congress adjourned, on July 20, to November 3. It 
was hardly out of the way before Johnson set out to 
get rid of Stanton and to displace Sheridan. Sheri- 
dan had really started the row by removing state and 
city officers concerned in the New Orleans riots a 
year earlier and Governor J. Madison Welles, "who," 
he wrote, was " a political trickster and a dishonest 
man ... his conduct has been as sinuous as the mark 
left in the dust by the movement of a snake." 

Before taking definite action Johnson told Grant 
what he had in mind. This was on August 1. Grant 
entered a strong protest which he embodied in a 
letter later in the same day : — 

'I take the liberty of addressing you privately on 
the subject of the conversation we had this morning, 



252 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

feeling as I do the great danger to the welfare of the 
country should you carry out the designs then ex- 
pressed. 

"First, on the subject of the displacement of the 
Secretary of War. His removal cannot be effected 
against his will without the consent of the Senate. It 
is but a short time since the United States Senate was 
in session, and why not then have asked for his re- 
moval if it was desired? It certainly was the intention 
of the legislative branch of the Government to place 
Cabinet officers beyond the power of Executive re- 
moval, and it is pretty well understood that so far 
as Cabinet ministers are affected by the ' Tenure of 
Office Bill,' it was intended specially to protect the 
Secretary of War, whom the country felt great con- 
fidence in. The meaning of the law may be explained 
away by an astute lawyer, but common sense and the 
views of loyal people will give to it the effect intended 
by its framers. 

"On the subject of the removal of the very able 
commander of the Fifth Military District, let me ask 
you to consider the effect it would have upon the 
public. He is universally and deservedly beloved by 
the people who sustained this Government through 
its trials, and feared by those who would still be 
enemies of the Government. . . . 

" In conclusion allow me to say, as a friend, desiring 



AT ODDS WITH JOHNSON 253 

peace and quiet, the welfare of the whole country 
North and South, that it is in my opinion more than 
the loyal people of this country (I mean those who 
supported the Government during the great rebel- 
lion) will quietly submit to, to see the very men of all 
others whom they have expressed confidence in re- 
moved." 

Whereupon the President, on August 5, sent Stan- 
ton this note : — 

"Sir: — Public considerations of a high character 
constrain me to say that your resignation as Secre- 
tary of War will be accepted." 

To which Stanton immediately replied : — 

" I have the honor to say that public considerations 
of a high character, which alone have induced me to 
continue at the head of the Department, constrain 
me not to resign the office of Secretary of War before 
the next meeting of Congress." 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

ACTING SECRETARY OF WAR 

Thwarted in his demand for Stanton's resignation,. 
Johnson decided to suspend him and put Grant in his 
place. No one could say with certainty even then 
just where Grant stood on the disputed questions of 
the hour. It was a hard part to play, with passion 
raging everywhere, but he had thus far saved him- 
self from taking sides. Ben Wade, one of the most 
bitter radicals in Congress, said he had often tried 
to find out whether Grant was for Congress or for 
Johnson or what he was for, but never could get any- 
thing out of him; "for as quick as he'd talk poli- 
tics Grant would talk horse." Actually, however, we 
have seen that Grant was now convinced that the 
congressional policy, however regrettable in certain 
features, had become inevitable through Johnson's 
mistaken course. He believed primarily in strict 
obedience to the law. 

On August 12, 1867, therefore, Johnson sent word 
to Stanton suspending him from the office of Secre- 
tary of War and directing him to turn the records of 
the office over to General Grant. Grant notified Stan- 
ton of his assignment, concluding a courteous note : — 

" In notifying you of my acceptance, I cannot let 



ACTING SECRETARY OF WAR 255 

the opportunity pass without expressing to you my 
appreciation of the zeal, patriotism, firmness, and 
ability with which you have ever discharged the du- 
ties of Secretary of War." 

Stanton responded with equal courtesy; but he en- 
closed with this communication the copy of a vivid 
letter which he had sent that same day to Johnson, 
denying the legality of his suspension and con- 
cluding: — 

"But inasmuch as the General commanding the 
armies of the United States has been appointed ad 
interim, and has notified me that he has accepted the 
appointment, I have no alternative but to submit, 
under protest, to superior force." 

Gideon Welles, the sturdy and vivacious chronicler 
of individual dislikes, gives in his "Diary" the mem- 
orandum of a conversation he had with Grant a few 
days later at the War Department, in which Grant 
clearly showed his sympathy with Congress, though 
not, it must be said, with cogent reasoning, as Welles 
transcribes his views. "On the whole," comments 
the controversial diarist, " I did not think so highly of 
General Grant after as before this conversation. He 
is a political ignoramus. . . . Obviously he has been 
tampered with and flattered by the Radicals, who 
are using him and his name for their selfish and par- 
tisan purposes." 



256 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

It was a mistake for Grant to take Stanton's place. 
He served as Secretary from August, 1867, to Janu- 
ary, 1868; and nothing was so eventful in his service 
as the manner of his leaving it, although he remedied 
abuses in administration, and rid the Government 
of unnecessary waste, in rotten contracts, growing 
out of war. The people did not understand his at- 
titude. There was no reason why they should. His 
letter to the President protesting against the removal 
of Sheridan and Stanton was not published at the 
time. The North did not appreciate that he had 
kept the place from falling into the hands of one who 
might be more subservient to Johnson's whims. They 
were resentful and indignant at the sacrifice of Stan- 
ton and blamed Grant for what looked like acquies- 
cence. 

As Grant maintained his taciturnity, no one, out- 
side the Cabinet and his personal staff, suspected the 
continual friction between the War Department and 
the White House. He attended Cabinet meetings as 
seldom as possible and avoided the discussion of 
political questions, leaving usually as soon as the 
routine business was ended. He tried to keep his civil 
and military characters distinct. It was an incon- 
gruous combination with a touch of Gilbert and Sul- 
livan. As Acting Secretary at the War Department in 
the morning he would sign orders to himself as Gen- 



ACTING SECRETARY OF WAR 257 

eral of the Army and then trudge across the street to 
Army headquarters, where he would acknowledge 
their receipt and execute them. 

The open break with Johnson came on Sheridan's 
removal. In that encounter Grant got the worst of it. 
In giving his order removing Sheridan and putting 
Thomas in his place, Johnson invited suggestions and 
Grant replied : — 

" I am pleased to avail myself of your invitation to 
urge — earnestly urge, urge in the name of patriotic 
people — that this order should not be insisted upon. 
It is the will of the country that General Sheridan 
should not be removed from his present command. 
This is a republic where the will of the people is 
the law of the land. I beg that their voice may be 
heard." 

This and more like it, so lacking in Grant's usual 
simplicity and restraint, Johnson punctured with the 
retort: — 

" I am not aware that the question of retaining 
General Sheridan in command of the Fifth Military 
District has ever been submitted to the people them- 
selves for determination. . . . General Sheridan has 
rendered himself exceedingly obnoxious by the man- 
ner in which he has exercised the powers conferred 
by Congress and still more so by the resort to au- 
thority not granted by law. . . . His removal, there- 



258 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

fore, cannot be regarded as an effort to defeat the 
laws of Congress." 

These letters were made public after Sheridan's 
removal. Johnson was praised in the South for his 
discomfiture of Grant and Grant was criticized in the 
North for the feebleness of his stand against Johnson. 
He might have drawn a lesson from the incident 
that he was less fit for controversy than command. 

Johnson, on December 12, 1867, just three weeks 
after Congress met again after a long recess, sent a 
message telling all about Stanton's suspension, forti- 
fied with documents and containing interesting rev- 
elations in regard to Stanton's own attitude toward 
the Tenure of Office Act. For an example : — 

" Every member of my Cabinet advised me that 
the proposed law was unconstitutional. All spoke 
without doubt or reservation, but Mr. Stanton's con- 
demnation of the law was the most elaborate and 
emphatic. ... I was so much- struck with the full 
mastery of the question manifested by Mr. Stanton 
. . . that I requested him to prepare the veto upon 
this Tenure of Office Bill. This he declined on the 
ground of physical disability, . . . but stated his readi- 
ness to furnish what aid might be required in the 
preparation of materials for the paper." 

Talk about impeachment rumbled in the air. Dur- 
ing the preceding winter several resolutions had been 






ACTING SECRETARY OF WAR 259 

presented in the House, had been considered by com- 
mittees, and as late as February 15 had been disap- 
proved. 

Then in a week, committee and House reversed 
themselves. On February 22, 1868, just two years 
from the day Johnson made his ill-fated speech from 
the White House steps, the Reconstruction Com- 
mittee unanimously reported a resolution of im- 
peachment, and two days later the resolution was 
adopted by the House, 128 to 47, the negative votes 
all Democrats. What had happened to bring about 
so swift a change? 

The Senate had duly considered Johnson's reasons 
for suspending Stanton and resolved that they were 
insufficient. This was late in the afternoon of Janu- 
ary 13, the Senate having had the question under con- 
sideration since January 11. On the morning of the 
14th, Grant went to the office of the Secretary of War, 
locked and bolted the door on the outside, turned the 
key over to the Adjutant-General, and at once sent 
a formal letter to the President, by the hand of Gen- 
eral Comstock, saying that he had been notified of 
the action of the Senate and that by the terms of the 
law his own functions as Secretary of War ceased with 
the reception of the notice. Stanton was once more 
in possession. 

With customary incivility almost his first act was 



260 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to send a messenger to Grant's office with word that 
he "wanted to see him." Had it not been before the 
days of electricity, he would no doubt have pressed a 
buzzer, as happened afterwards with other secretaries 
and other generals. Both Grant and Sherman four 
months before his removal had found Stanton's ar- 
rogance insufferable, and Grant at one time had con- 
cluded that either he or Stanton must resign. 1 

1 "In 18G6, 1867, and 1868, General Grant talked to me freely 
several times of his differences with Secretary Stanton. His most 
emphatic declaration on that subject, and of his own intended 
action in consequence, appears from the records to have been 
made after Stanton's return to the war office in January, 1868, 
when his conduct was even more offensive to Grant than it had 
been before Stanton's suspension in August, 1867, and when Grant 
and Sherman were trying to get Stanton out of the war office. At 
the time of General Grant's visit to Richmond, Virginia, as one of 
the Peabody Trustees, he said to me that the conduct of Mr. Stan- 
ton had become intolerable to him, and, after asking my opinion, 
declared in emphatic terms his intention to demand either the 
removal of Stanton or the acceptance of his own resignation. But 
the bitter personal controversy which immediately followed be- 
tween Grant and Johnson, the second attempt to remove Stanton 
in February, 1868, and the consequent impeachment of the Presi- 
dent, totally eclipsed the more distant and lesser controversy be- 
tween Grant and Stanton, and doubtless prevented Grant from 
taking the action in respect to Stanton's removal which he in- 
formed me at Richmond he intended to take." (Schofield, Forty- 
six Years in the Army, pp. 412-13.) 



CHAPTER XXIX 

A QUESTION OF VERACITY — THE IMPEACHMENT 
PROCEEDINGS — ELECTION AS PRESIDENT 

Johnson was furious. That day a bitter, far-reaching 
dispute began, involving the good faith and truth- 
fulness of Grant and the veracity of Johnson. It 
severed all relations between the two. Johnson con- 
tended that the Tenure of Office Act was unconsti- 
tutional, and that in any event, by the manner of 
its phrasing, it did not apply to Stanton or any other 
of Lincoln's appointees. He wanted to test it in the 
courts, and he declared that Grant agreed to " return 
the office to my possession in time to enable me to 
appoint a successor before final action by the Senate 
upon Mr. Stanton's suspension, or would remain as 
its head awaiting a decision of the question by judi- 
cial proceedings." 

Grant denied that he had made such an agreement. 
He admitted that some time after assuming the duties 
of Secretary, when the President asked his views as 
to the course which Stanton must pursue to gain 
possession of the office in case the Senate should not 
concur in his suspension, he had replied in substance 
that Stanton would have to appeal to the courts to 
reinstate him. " Finding that the President was de- 



262 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

sirous of keeping Mr. Stanton out of office, whether 
sustained in the suspension or not, I stated that I had 
not looked particularly into the Tenure of Office Bill, 
but that what I had stated was a general principle 
and if I should change my mind in this particular case 
I would inform him of the fact. Subsequently, on 
reading the Tenure of Office Bill closely, I found that 
I could not without violation of the law refuse to 
vacate the office of Secretary of War the moment Mr. 
Stanton was reinstated by the Senate, 1 even though 
the President should order me to retain it, which he 
never did. Taking this view of the subject and learn- 
ing on Saturday, the 11th instant, that the Senate 
had taken up the subject of Mr. Stanton's suspen- 
sion, after some conversation with Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral Sherman and some members of my staff, in which 
I stated that the law left me no discretion as to my 
action should Mr. Stanton be reinstated, and that I 
intended to inform the President, I went to the Presi- 
dent for the sole purpose of making this decision 
known and did so make it known. In doing this I 

1 Sec. 5 — That if any person shall, contrary to the provision 
of this Act, accept any appointment to or employment in any of- 
fice, or shall hold or exercise any such office or employment, he 
shall be deemed, and is hereby declared to be, guilty of a high mis- 
demeanor, and, upon trial and conviction thereof, he shall be pun- 
ished therefor by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or by 
imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both said punishments, 
in the discretion of the court. 



A QUESTION OF VERACITY 263 

fulfilled the promise made in our last preceding con- 
versation on the subject." 

The trouble was that Johnson did not know Grant. 
He could not comprehend finality of purpose in one 
who did not storm and bluster. Like many other 
stubborn men of narrow opportunities he overesti- 
mated his own power of persuasion. As Grant was 
leaving after announcing his decision, Johnson said 
he would expect to see him again. To Johnson this 
meant further argument with the probability of 
Grant's acceding to his views. To Grant it meant 
nothing of the sort. He had made up his mind. 
Johnson had misjudged Grant once before when he 
told Sherman Grant was going to Mexico after Grant 
had said he did not intend to go. He might have 
profited by that experience. 

The 14th was Cabinet day. Johnson, in whose own 
hand Comstock had placed Grant's written notifica- 
tion and who had read it in Comstock's presence, ig- 
noring the letter, sent word back by Comstock that 
he wanted to see Grant at the meeting. In his con- 
troversial letter to Johnson, dated January 28, 1868, 
Grant says : — 

"At this meeting, after opening it as though I were 
a member of the Cabinet, when reminded of the 
notification already given him that I was no longer 
Secretary of War ad interim, the President gave a 



201 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

version of the conversations alluded to already. In 
this statement it was asserted that in both conver- 
sations I had agreed to hold on to the office of Secre- 
tary of War until displaced by the courts, or resign, so 
as to place the President where he would have been 
had I never accepted the office. After hearing the 
President through, I stated our conversations sub- 
stantially as given in this letter. ... I in no wise ad- 
mitted the correctness of the President's statement, 
though, to soften the evident contradiction my state- 
ment gave, I said (alluding to our first conversation 
on the subject) the President might have understood 
me the way he said, namely, that I had promised to 
resign if I did not resist the reinstatement. I made no 
such promise." 

Here the question of veracity arises. The next 
morning the "National Intelligencer," the Adminis- 
tration organ, had an editorial purporting to give an 
account of the meeting, leaving Grant in the position 
of having then admitted equivocation and a breach 
of faith. Grant called with Sherman at the White 
House to protest against it. At a meeting next day 
Johnson read the editorial to the members of the 
Cabinet and secured from each of them a con- 
firmation of the "Intelligencer" report. Still later 
each gave the President a written statement con- 
firming Johnson's recollection of the affair. 



A QUESTION OF VERACITY 265 

Gideon Welles, who had long included Grant in 
his accumulating collection of malevolents, thus de- 
scribes the scene in his "Diary": — 

"The President was calm and dignified, though 
manifestly disappointed and displeased. General 
Grant was humble, hesitating, and he evidently felt 
that his position was equivocal and not to his credit. 
There was, I think, an impression on the minds of 
all present (there certainly was on mine) that a con- 
sciousness that he had acted with duplicity — not 
been faithful and true to the man who had confided 
in and trusted him — oppressed General Grant. His 
manner, never very commanding, was almost abject, 
and he left the room with less respect, I apprehend, 
from those present than ever before. The President, 
though disturbed and not wholly able to conceal his 
chagrin from those familiar with him, used no hard 
expressions nor committed anything approaching 
incivility, yet Grant felt the few words put to him 
and the cold and surprised disdain of the President 
in all their force." 

The correspondence between Grant and Johnson 
growing out of this dispute began with a request from 
Grant, on January 24, that the President give him in 
writing an order, given verbally five days earlier, to 
disregard Stanton's orders as Secretary of War. "I 
am compelled to ask these instructions in writing," 



2GG ULYSSES S. GRANT 

he says in the letter of January 28 already quoted, 
" in consequence of the many and gross misrepre- 
sentations affecting my personal honor, circulated 
through the press for the past fortnight, purporting 
to come from the President, of conversations which 
occurred either with the President privately in his 
office or in Cabinet meeting. What is written admits 
of no misunderstanding." 

So far as Grant was concerned the correspondence 
ended with his letter of February 3 in response to 
Johnson's letter of January 31. There is nothing in 
American history before or since to compare with 
this challenge of the President's veracity by the 
General of the Army. 

Badeau says that Grant first wrote a reply much 
milder in tone, admitting the possibility that John- 
son might have honestly misconstrued his position. 
But Rawlins, who unlike Grant saw the political 
bearing of the controversy, said: "This will not do; 
it is not enough"; and drafted a paragraph directly 
contradicting and defying the President. This may 
well be true; at any rate, the letter unequivocal and 
personal destroyed all possibility of further relations 
and made Grant at once the head of the Republican 
Party. 

Grant in his letter said of Johnson's statement: — 

" I find it but a reiteration, only somewhat more 



A QUESTION OF VERACITY 267 

in detail, of the 'many and gross misrepresenta- 
tions' . . . which my statement of the facts set forth 
in my letter of the 28th ultimo was intended to cor- 
rect ; and I here reassert the correctness of my state- 
ments in that letter; anything in yours in reply to it 
to the contrary notwithstanding. I confess my sur- 
prise that the Cabinet officers referred to should so 
greatly misapprehend the facts in the matter of ad- 
missions alleged to have been made by me. . . . 

"From our conversations, and my written protest 
of August 1, 1867, against the removal of Mr. Stan- 
ton, you must have known that my greatest objec- 
tion to his removal or suspension was the fear that 
some one would be appointed in his stead, who would, 
by opposition to the laws relating to the restoration 
of the Southern States to their proper relations to 
the Government, embarrass the Army in the per- 
formance of duties especially imposed upon it by 
these laws; and it was to prevent such an appoint- 
ment that I accepted the office of Secretary of War 
ad interim, and not for the purpose of enabling you 
to get rid of Mr. Stanton by my withholding it from 
him in opposition to law, or, not doing so myself, 
surrendering it to one who would, as the statement 
and assumptions in your communication plainly indi- 
cate was sought. . . . The course you would have it 
understood I had agreed to pursue was in violation of 



208 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

law, and without orders from you; while the course 
I did pursue and which I never doubted you fully 
understood, was in accordance with law, and not 
in disobedience to any orders of my superior. 

"And now, Mr. President, when my honor as a 
soldier and integrity as a man have been so violently 
assailed, pardon me for saying that I can but regard 
this whole matter, from the beginning to the end, as 
an attempt to involve me in the resistance of law, for 
which you hesitated to assume the responsibility in 
orders, and thus to destroy my character before the 
country. I am in a measure confirmed in this con- 
clusion by your recent orders directing me to disobey 
orders from the Secretary of War, — my superior and 
your subordinate, — without having countermanded 
his authority to issue the orders I am to disobey. 

He concluded with the assurance "that nothing 
less than a vindication of my personal honor and 
character" could have induced this correspondence 
on his part. 

From that day Grant refused to have any dealings 
whatever either with Johnson or with members of 
the Cabinet w T ho, in confirming Johnson's version of 
their interview, gave the sanction of their names to 
his assault on Grant's veracity. 

While Congress and the country were intent on j 
his dispute with Grant, Johnson was nursing his 



THE IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS 269 

determination to get rid of Stanton. He refused to 
recognize him as Secretary. He directed Grant to 
ignore Stanton's orders. He tried to get Sherman to 
take Stanton's place; but Sherman sturdily refused. 
Johnson's personal objection to Stanton was only one 
of the factors in his determination. He was obsessed 
with the idea of testing the Tenure of Office Act in 
the courts and thus gaining a tactical advantage 
over his enemies in Congress. On February 21 he 
ordered Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant-General, to 
take possession of the office of the Secretary of 
War, and gave him a letter which Thomas handed 
to Stanton removing Stanton. Stanton held on to 
the office and barred Thomas out. The defiance 
was on. 

Then it was that Stevens presented his report, 
signed by all the Republican members of the Recon- 
struction Committee, impeaching Andrew Johnson 
of high crimes and misdemeanors in office. Two days 
later the House adopted the resolution, 126 to 47, 
every Republican present voting "aye." The trial 
in the Senate began almost immediately. Johnson 
escaped conviction by a single vote, and, strange to 
say, one of the earliest concessions on both sides was 
that, so far as Stanton's removal was concerned, he 
had acted entirely within the law. The charges on 
which the case against him was finally made were 



270 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Stevens's charges of general contumacy which the 
House had a few weeks earlier refused to regard as 
justifying impeachment. 

The first vote of the Senate on the articles of im- 
peachment was on May 16. Then a recess of Con- 
gress was taken to May 26, when the final vote was 
taken. During the recess the National Union Re- 
publican Convention assembled in Chicago, and on 
May 20 Grant was nominated for President by a 
unanimous vote, with Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of 
the House, for Vice-President. Grant had never 
voted but once in his life and then for Buchanan, 
"because I knew Fremont." If he had qualified in 
Illinois in 1860, he would have voted for Douglas. 
But his antecedents were Republican. That was the 
political faith of his father, and through his experi- 
ence with Johnson he had developed a partisan bias 
which led him even to the point of hoping for John- 
son's conviction on the articles of impeachment. 
There was no incongruity, therefore, in his becom- 
ing the Republican candidate, and it was lucky for 
the party that they could command the service of the 
outstanding figure of the time. The elections of the 
fall of 1867 had shown an alarming Democratic tend- 
ency. With any other candidate than Grant in 
1868 the Republicans might have been hard pressed 
for success, assuming that the Democrats showed! 






ELECTION AS PRESIDENT 271 

ordinary political sense in their selection of a can- 
didate. 

Grant received the notice of his nomination at 
Galena. His letter of acceptance was commendable 
for brevity and good taste. He undertook to discuss 
no issues, but gave assurances that he would try to 
carry out the purpose of the party which had named 
him, and, as an afterthought it is said, he appended 
to the letter the sentence, "Let us have peace," an 
appeal which went to the people's heart and proved 
to be the rallying cry of the campaign. But in spite 
of everything the result was by no means a fore- 
gone conclusion. Seymour and Blair, the Democra- 
tic candidates, carried New York, New Jersey, and 
Oregon among the Northern States. Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, and Indiana went Republican by unexpectedly 
close margins. Grant carried twenty-six States, it is 
true, with 214 electoral votes, and Seymour only 
eight States with 80 electoral votes, but the popular 
majority was much smaller than these figures would 
indicate. If it had not been for the negro vote in the 
South, which was still unsuppressed and which pre- 
vented that section from being solidly Democratic, 
as it afterwards became, Seymour would have been 
elected. 

From the day of his election till he went back to 
Washington for his inauguration, Grant remained in 



272 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

intellectual seclusion. Although he spent much time 
in Washington, few men of standing in his party saw 
him, and with these few he was strangely reticent. 
As in the Army he had never held a council of war, so 
now he asked no one's advice about his Cabinet or his 
inaugural address. He made no suggestions to Re- 
publican leaders in Congress as to measures which 
he might like to see them enact pending his induction 
into office. 

Stevens had died in the summer of 1868, and his 
mantle of leadership had been grabbed by the brag- 
gart Butler, who kept the House torn with dissen- 
sion and noisy with turmoil in his determination to 
force through laws still further to harass the stricken 
South. In order to insure to Republican "carpet- 
baggers" and "scalawags" possession of the local 
offices in the unreconstructed States, a resolution 
was framed ordering the district commander to re- 
move all civil officers who could not take the iron- 
clad oath and appoint in their places men who could 
subscribe to it, with a proviso that those whose 
disabilities had been removed by Congress might 
also be eligible to office. The resolution was passed 
unanimously in both houses without debate. At the 
time of its adoption it benefited only carpet-baggers 
and ex-Confederate "scalawags" who had become 
Republicans. To put beyond the reach of legislative 






ELECTION AS PRESIDENT 273 

recall the negro's right to vote, the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment of the Constitution was framed, providing that 
" The right of citizens of the United States to vote 
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States 
or by any State on account of race, color, or previ- 
ous condition of servitude." 

Thus Grant, in entering upon the Presidency, — 
the first strictly civil office he had ever held, — found 
himself confronted by political conditions in the 
South which might have staggered a statesman of 
lifelong experience and for which he was in no way 
responsible, while domestic questions affecting the na- 
tion's financial credit and foreign problems affecting 
its standing among the nations of the world pressed 
for consideration. Those who criticize the course of 
his Administration and condemn him for his choice 
of advisers might first point out what statesman of 
the day would have done better in his place and what 
advisers would have aided him to more beneficent 
results. 



, 



CHAPTER XXX 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 

When Grant became President, it seemed for the 
moment as though a second "era of good feeling" 
were at hand. Democrats as well as Republicans 
looked on him as their chosen leader. There was only 
one unpleasant feature about his assumption of 
office. Grant refused to ride in the same carriage 
with Johnson from the White House to the Capitol on 
inauguration day. He could not forget that Johnson 
had called his truthfulness in question. 

Grant's first inaugural was written entirely by 
himself; no one saw a draft of it until the day of its 
delivery. As the 4th of March approached without 
an intimation of what Grant had in mind, A. R. 
Corbin — a prospective brother-in-law who was gain- 
ing a livelihood on the fringe of Wall Street — 
handed the President a complete draft of an inau- 
gural. But, without glancing at the contents, Grani 
handed the document to Badeau, telling him to lock 
it up in a desk, keep the key, and let no one look at 
it until after the 4th of March. 

The inaugural was brief, — only twelve hundrec 
words, — yet in spite of its brevity it contained sen 



; 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 275 

tences which stuck in the mind and some of which 
have since become embedded in our common speech : 
"The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept 
them without fear. The office has come to me un- 
sought; I commence its duties untranimeled." " All 
laws will be faithfully executed, whether they meet 
my approval or not. I shall on all subjects have a 
policy to recommend, but none to enforce against 
the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike — 
those opposed as well as those who favor them. I 
know no method to repeal bad or obnoxious laws so 
effective as their stringent execution." 

In spite of some criticism of certain seemingly self- 
sufficient passages, the inaugural took well ; but when 
the new Cabinet was announced, Republican poli- 
ticians gasped with dismay. Only two of the names 
had ever been guessed and some were not suspected 

• by the nominees themselves until they appeared in 
the list. Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, was named 
Secretary of State; it had been assumed that Grant 
would recognize in some way the services of his earli- 
est influential friend, but this particular distinction 
had not been foreseen. When it appeared in a few 
days that the appointment was intended as a per- 
sonal compliment, and that Washburne was to hold 

: the position just long enough to enjoy the title, the 
criticism was general. To one who complained that 



276 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the occupant of the position of Secretary of State 
ought to be able to speak the French language cor- 
rectly, the reply was made, " He ought at least to be 
able to speak his own." But Washburne's creditable 
record as Minister to France, during the Franco- 
Prussian War and during the trying days of the Com- 
mune, saved his reputation in the end. 

A. T. Stewart was named Secretary of the Treas- 
ury. The Senate promptly confirmed his nomina- 
tion, and until somebody recalled a long-buried law, 
enacted early in the century, providing that this 
particular office should not be rilled by any man en- 
gaged in commerce, no one in Washington realized 
that the great merchant and importer was ineligible 
to the place. Grant, with sublime indifference to 
technicalities, asked the Senate to repeal the law and 
John Sherman, himself to be Secretary of the Treas- 
ury later, moved the repeal; but owing to Sumner's 
opposition the motion was defeated. Grant was no 
more to blame for making the nomination than the 
Senate for confirming it. They might have been ex- 
pected to be familiar with the law. Sumner in his 
subsequent attacks on Grant denounced him for try- 
ing to upset a statute which " had stood unquestioned 
until it had acquired the character of fundamental 
law," yet Sumner himself must have been ignorant 
of this "fundamental law" when he first aquiesced in 






PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 277 

Stewart's confirmation. George S. Boutwell, a mem- 
ber of the House from Massachusetts, once a business 
man in a small way, Commissioner of Internal Rev- 
enue during the Civil War, was named in place of 
Stewart — an unexceptionable appointment. 

E. Rockwood Hoar, of Massachusetts, was made 
Attorney-General; he was a learned lawyer of distin- 
guished antecedents and high character, a member 
of the House, a friend of Sumner, a scholar of pungent 
wit and exalted ideals of public duty. He gained the 
ill-will of certain Republican Senators because of his 
austerity in rebuking their demands for the appoint- 
ment of judges, district attorneys, and United States 
marshals in the South whom he believed to be unfit, 
and when Grant subsequently nominated him to fill 
a vacancy on the Supreme Bench caused by Stanton's 
death, these Senators, urged on by Butler who hated 
him, brought about the rejection of the nomination. 
Grant stood squarely with Hoar in his effort to pre- 
serve the quality of the Federal Bench. The story of 
his final withdrawal from the Cabinet is an interesting 
chapter in the history of the times. 

General Schofield, whom Johnson had made Sec- 
retary of War after Stanton's retirement, was re- 
quested by Grant to retain his place for a while. A 
personal compliment this. Schofield was succeeded in 
a few weeks by Rawlins whom Grant needed always 



278 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

near his side. No one could fairly object to his 
selection. Adolph E. Borie was named for Secre- 
tary of the Navy. He was a wealthy and philan- 
thropic Philadelphia!! whom no one outside Phila- 
delphia had ever heard of. He was an invalid and had 
no thought of the Cabinet until he saw that he had 
been nominated. He resigned as soon as he could 
gracefully retire, and was succeeded by George M. 
Robeson, of New Jersey, then a young lawyer of 
striking ability, who was reputed at the time to have 
been recommended by Borie for the succession. The 
Secretary of the Interior was Jacob D. Cox, Gov- 
ernor of Ohio, who not only had a fine record as brig- 
adier-general in the Civil War, especially at Franklin 
and Antietam, but who was a man of education and 
wide reading, a forceful and interesting writer and a 
Republican of conservative tendencies. When run- 
ning for Governor of Ohio he had announced himself 
boldly as opposed to negro suffrage. The Postmaster- 
General was John A. J. Creswell, of Maryland, for a 
short time a member of the House and Senate, like 
some others in the Cabinet hardly known outside his 
own community. 

For eight years Grant was President. His two ad- 
ministrations were marked by extraordinary achieve- 
ment both in the domestic and in the foreign field. 
True, he was the target of abuse and criticism; no 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 279 

President in the long list, with the possible exception 
of Johnson, has been more bitterly assailed, and he 
was vulnerable at many points. He was a soldier with 
a limited experience in dealing with men of affairs 
and only a superficial acquaintance with politics; 
with no great knowledge of history, or literature, and 
innocent of the science of government; yet William 
Tecumseh Sherman, in one of his flashes of political 
insight, came very near the mark when he wrote in 
the summer of 1868: "My own opinion is that, con- 
sidering the state of the country, Grant will make 
the best President we can get. What we want in na- 
tional politics is quiet, harmony, and stability, and 
these are more likely with Grant than any politician 
I know of." 

Grant made serious mistakes; but almost without 
exception they were errors arising from childlike trust 
and unfortunate asssociations. They seldom affected 
adversely measures of broad public policy. When we 
recall the great accomplishments of his administra- 
tions, — the establishment of the principle of inter- 
national arbitration through the Treaty of Washing- 
ton and the adjudication of the Alabama claims by 
the Geneva Tribunal; the upholding of American 
dignity and the assertion of American rights in the 
matter of the Virginius and the handling of the Cu- 
ban complications ; the rehabilitation of the national 



280 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

credit, and the maintenance of the national honor, 
the inauguration of a consistent and merciful policy 
toward the Indians; the recognition of the principle 
of civil service reform ; and the restoration of a sem- 
blance of order in the South, — we are tempted to 
subordinate, though we cannot honestly ignore, the 
personal differences which marred the period of his 
service and the public scandal attaching to some of 
those who, in the shelter of his friendship and of offices 
bestowed upon them through his favor, betrayed his 
trust. It was a time of universal prodigality and ex- 
travagance, when speculation flourished and the na- 
tion's moral fiber had been coarsened by the excesses 
of war. It was not strange that the widespread taint 
invaded public place. It would have been more 
strange if it had not. 

Grant's first choice for Secretary of State had been 
James F. Wilson, of Iowa. Wilson would have been 
a creditable selection, although foreign affairs were 
not directly in his line, for he was able, industrious, 
and high-minded. He first accepted the appoint- 
ment, but at Grant's request consented that Wash- 
burne should hold the place a little while, so that 
Washburne might go to Paris with enhanced prestige. 
The understanding was that W T ashburne's tenure 
should be nominal, that he should not initiate a 
policy or make appointments, but he did both, and 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 281 

Wilson, when he found what had been done, refused 
to take the place. 

As a substitute for Wilson, Grant hit upon Hamil- 
ton Fish and a day or two after inauguration sent 
General Babcock, his military aide, over to New 
York to offer Fish the place. Fish had wealth, social 
and family position. He was about sixty years old; 
had been governor; had served in the Legislature, in 
the National House of Representatives, and for one 
term in the United States Senate, where he had gained 
Sumner's friendship; but he had not been in public 
life since he quit the Senate in 1857; had made no 
great mark in any of the offices he had held, and was 
not widely known. Grant had met him occasionally 
in New York, but was not intimately acquainted with 
him. 

Fish did not care for the position of Secretary of 
State. He was Grant's second choice and not long 
under consideration; yet he was to preside over the 
State Department for a longer period than any other 
Secretary in the history of the Government, except 
Seward, and to leave a record of distinguished 
achievement commensurate with his length of serv- 
ice. Seward is quoted by John Bigelow, who visited 
him at Auburn shortly after the appointment, as 
saying that Grant had no idea of a foreign policy 
except brute force. That he (Seward) had told them 






282 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

at Washington that there were but three men fit to 
be Secretary of State that he knew; they were, 
Sumner, Charles Francis Adams, and himself; that 
no one but himself could make an analysis of the 
Alabama correspondence in less than a year, and that 
it would take four months for him to do it. " Fish will 
refer everything to the Attorney- General. He will 
do nothing himself; he cannot. Sumner wished and 
had a right to have been asked into the Cabinet, 
though he would not have accepted. It was neither 
courteous nor wise in Grant to have neglected this 
attention." 

"The Cabinet is not strong, but it is respectable," 
wrote Bigelow to Huntington, March 16, 1869. 
" Whether it lasts or goes to pieces depends upon 
Grant's purpose in selecting it. If he has a policy 
and wanted men merely for instruments to put it into 
operation, it is admirably chosen. If he wants re- 
sponsible ministers he has not got them. Hamilton 
Fish is my neighbor in the country — an amiable, 
but heavy man, who at the bar ranked as a moderate 
attorney, but whose name I suspect does not appear 
in the books of reports once. . . . Mr. Washburne is 
another illustration of Grant's fidelity to his friends. 
In company with many of his predecessors he [Wash- j 
burne] will have one advantage over the people he is 
to live among — he will learn a great deal more froi 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 283 

them than they are likely to learn from him. . . . 
Grant has lost prestige enormously in the country." 

"He [Grant] seems to have no comprehension of 
the nature of political forces," writes Bigelow three 
weeks later. "His Cabinet are merely staff officers, 
selected apparently out of motives of gratitude or for 
pecuniary favors received from them. His relatives 
and old friends were among the first provided for. . . . 
No President before was ever got in the family way so 
soon after inauguration. By his secretiveness in re- 
gard to his choice of a Cabinet and by his taking 
men unknown to his party or to any party, he 
wounded the pride of Congress incurably. ..." 

Carl Schurz tells in his "Reminiscences" an an- 
ecdote heard in the cloak-room of the Senate at this 
time. One of the best lawyers in the Senate heard a 
rumor that President Grant was about to remove a 
federal judge in one of the Territories, a lawyer of 
excellent ability and uncommon fitness for the bench. 
The Senator remonstrated and Grant admitted that 
as far as he knew there was no allegation of the un- 
fitness of the judge; "but," he added, "the Governor 
of the Territory writes me that he cannot get along 
with that judge at all, and is very anxious to be rid of 
him; and I think the Governor is entitled to have 
control of his staff." So much for contemporary 
criticism! 



CHAPTER XXXI 

PERSONAL EQUATIONS 

"I like Grant," wrote James Russell Lowell after a 
visit to Washington in March, 1870, "and was struck 
with the pathos of his face; a puzzled pathos, as of a 
man with a problem before him of which he does not 
understand the terms." 1 

Grant had then been President a year — a year 
crowded with pressing problems, some of which were 
complicated, it is true, but all of which might almost 
be stated in terms of Grant himself, and Sumner, with 
Fish and Motley as ever-present factors. If in the 
early weeks of the Administration there had been at 
hand a disinterested friend endowed with the ability 
to handle men of widely differing tastes and ante- 
cedents, the personal misunderstanding between 
the President and the leader of the Senate might 
never have developed into a feud endangering the 
success of the Administration and embittering the 
lives of all concerned; for Grant and Sumner had 
common aspirations, although their methods of 
approach were so unlike. But no such friend appeared 
to put his ringer on the point of sympathetic contact 
1 Letter to Leslie Stephen, March 2.5, 1870. 



PERSONAL EQUATIONS 285 

through which harmonious relations could have been 
maintained. 

It might be thought that Fish, by virtue of his place 
and of his earlier relations with Sumner in the Senate, 
could at least have been of service as a go-between; 
but whatever may have been his inclination, he was 
not the man to undertake the task. Sumner, while 
glad to have him as a friend, had never looked upon 
him as an .intellectual equal, and held him somewhat 
lightly as a figure in affairs. While Fish, at first re- 
garding Sumner as his mentor, came slowly to resent 
the other's condescensions, and true to his Dutch 
ancestry, once having set his mind against his old 
associate, aligned himself immovably with his official 
chief, thus helping to accentuate the feud. Besides, 
he early came to formulate a sane, far-seeing diplo- 
matic programme of his own. 

Sumner had a low opinion of Grant's political 
sagacity. He never thought Grant should have been 
made President as a reward for military success, 
took no part in his nomination, and acquiesced re- 
luctantly when he saw that it was bound to come. 
There was nothing strange in this. Sumner was not 
alone in questioning the wisdom of Grant's selection, 
and Grant was not the only President about whose 
fitness he had been in doubt. He never quite ap- 
proved of Lincoln or understood him. " Mr. Lincoln 



286 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

was a constant puzzle to him," says Carl Schurz. "He 
frequently told me of profound and wise things Mr. 
Lincoln had said, and then again of other sayings 
which were unintelligible to him, and seemed to him 
inconsistent with a serious appreciation of the task 
before us. Being entirely devoid of the sense of 
humor himself, Mr. Sumner frequently — I might 
almost say always — failed to see the point of the 
quaint anecdotes or illustrations with which Mr. 
Lincoln was fond of elucidating his arguments, as 
with a flashlight. . . . Many a time I saw Sumner 
restlessly pacing up and down in his room and ex- 
claiming with uplifted hands : ' I pray that the Pres- 
ident may be right in delaying. But I am afraid, I 
am almost sure he is not. I trust his fidelity but I 
cannot understand him."' l 

As for Grant, he had no skill in handling men of 
Sumner's type, differing therein from Lincoln, who 
had a way of dropping in at Sumner's house to drink 
a cup of the inimitable tea, in brewing which the 
Massachusetts statesman took peculiar pride, and 
after sipping it like an old gossip purring the real 
object of his visit into Sumner's ear. Nor would 
Grant have done as Lincoln did after his second in- 
auguration, when Sumner's hostility to the Louisiana 
policy threatened a fatal break. " Dear Mr. Sum- 
1 The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, vol. 11, pp. 312-14. 



PERSONAL EQUATIONS 287 

ner," Lincoln wrote, " unless you send me word to 
the contrary I shall this evening call with my car- 
riage at your house to take you to the Inauguration 
Ball "; and at the Ball Lincoln walked in with Sum- 
ner arm in arm and kept him by his side. 

Sumner thought in 1864 that Lincoln should give 
way to a more forceful candidate, just as in 1868 he 
thought a recognized Republican of ripe political ex- 
perience would have been better qualified than Grant 
to meet the problems of the time. It may be he was 
right. The trouble would have been to find the man. 

When Grant took office Sumner was the unchal- 
lenged chieftain of the Senate. He had been chair- 
man of the Committee on Foreign Relations ever 
since Seward entered Lincoln's Cabinet, and, as 
Chase had also gone, no one was left to rival him in 
seniority or reputation. All things conspired to give 
him prominence and swell his own conception of his 
place in national affairs. He was well born and highly 
educated and had been trained almost from boyhood 
for a political career. He had read every serious book 
which had been written on the science of government, 
knew the best writings of all times and countries, and 
had stored in a capacious memory a prodigious mass 
of information about many things, with which he tire- 
somely embellished his speeches in the Senate and his 
daily talk. He was one of the few Americans of his 



288 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

day who had familiar correspondence with scholars, 
writers, and public men abroad. Politically invinci- 
ble at home in Massachusetts, he was regarded else- 
where as a hero and the champion of liberty, for his 
fame as an uncompromising advocate of the rights of 
men ran back to the fermenting time of 1848. 

Mr. Lodge in his "Early Memories" has given 
us a delightful portrait of Sumner. He speaks of his 
wide learning, of his power of devouring books with 
extraordinary rapidity, and the gift of remembering 
everything. " Sumner," he says, " was by nature a 
dreamer, a man of meditation, a man of books, and a 
lover of learning. By the circumstances of his time 
and by the hand of fate he was projected into a ca- 
reer of intense action and fierce struggle. There he 
played a great part, but his nature was not changed. 
He still remained at bottom a dreamer and a man 
of books. ... A statesman in the largest sense, 
although not a legislator who drafted laws and at- 
tended to legislative details ... he cared nothing 
for politics in the ordinary acceptation of the word. 
. . . He was a most imposing figure. Tall, large, not 
regularly handsome in features, but with a noble head 
and a fine intellectual face. No one could look upon 
him and fail to be struck and attracted by his looks 
and presence. To all this was added that rarest of 
gifts, a very fine voice, deep and rich with varied 









PERSONAL EQUATIONS 289 

tones and always a delight to the ear. . . . Coupled 
with his deficiency in a sense of humor, and akin to it, 
was a curious simplicity of nature. . . . He was any- 
thing but conceited, but he had vanity ... in a 
marked degree. ... It was not the vanity which 
offends, for it was too frank, too obvious, too inno- 
cent to give offense, but it made him an easy prey to 
those who wished to profit by it. . . . No man had 
better manners in daily life, manners at once kindly, 
stately, and dignified, and he could do a courteous 
action in a most graceful way." 

Schurz said that in himself Sumner felt the whole 
dignity of the Republic; in sporting language, "he 
had a good eye for country, but no scent for a trail." 

A marked contrast, this, to Grant, small in stature, 
slouchy in dress and bearing, taciturn in public, with- 
out ostentation or vanity, meagerly read and hardly 
educated beyond West Point necessities, careless of 
refinements, unfamiliar with the graces of society, 
his clothing reeking always with the stale odor of 
tobacco, ill at ease with men of culture, yet simple 
and direct in speech and in his manner of approach- 
ing other men. 

" As different in their mental attributes as in their 
physical appearance," says Charles Francis Adams. 1 
" While Mr. Sumner was, intellectually, morally, and 

1 Before and after the Treaty of Washington, p. 75. 






290 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

physically, much the finer and more imposing human 
product, Grant had counterbalancing qualities which 
made him, in certain fields, the more formidable op- 
ponent. With immense will, he was taciturn; Sum 
ner, on the contrary, in no way deficient in will, was 
a man of many words, a rhetorician. In action and 
among men Grant's self-control was perfect, amount- 
ing to complete apparent imperturbability. Unas- 
suming, singularly devoid of self-consciousness, in 
presence of an emergency his blood never seemed to 
quicken, his face became only the more set, tenacity 
personified; whereas Sumner, when morally excited, 
the rush of his words, his deep, tremulous utterance, 
and the light in his eye, did not impart conviction or 
inspire respect. Doubts would suggest themselves to 
the unsympathetic, or only partially sympathetic, 
listener whether the man was of altogether balanced 
mind. . . . Quite unconsciously on his part he as- 
sumed an attitude of moral superiority and intellec- 
tual certainty, in no way compatible with a proper 
appreciation of the equality of others. In the min 
of a man like Grant, these peculiarities excited o 
stinacy, anger, and contempt." 

Charles Eliot Norton has preserved one of Grant' 
rare gleams of humor, when he replied to somebody 
who told him Sumner had no faith in the Bible: 
"Well: he did n't write it." 



PERSONAL EQUATIONS 291 

Motley was Sumner's personal friend; a member of 
the same literary and social group in Boston, 1 — 
a group embracing Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, 
Hawthorne, Agassiz, Andrew, Dana, and Holmes; of 
distinguished achievement as the historian of the 
Dutch Republic, of ripe culture and great personal 
charm, of cosmopolitan experience, familiar with the 
universities and libraries of Europe, and of some dip- 
lomatic experience by reason of his service as Minister 
to Austria under the Lincoln and Johnson Admin- 
istrations, which came to a distressing end through 
Seward's clumsy handling of an unknown critic's 
abusive letter and his own excessive sensitiveness. 
Sumner and his other friends pressed Grant to make 
him Minister to England partly as a balm for injured 
oride. But behind it also was Sumner's unexpressed 
issumption that through his position in the Senate 
le was to be responsible for the conduct of our for- 
eign relations during the incumbency of an ignorant 
Executive and an inexperienced Secretary of State. 

With our grievances against Great Britain press- 
ng for a settlement, he wanted to have at London a 
epresentative in whom he could place perfect trust, 
,nd from his point of view Motley was the ideal 
nan. 
But in other ways the choice was not by any means 
1 The Saturday Club. 



292 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the best which could be made. With all his personal 
charm and social distinction, Motley was lacking in 
the tact and diplomatic skill which were required in 
an effective American representative in London at 
that time. In fact, he was not by nature adapted to 
diplomacy at all, although no finer type of American 
citizenship could have been chosen to stand as the 
enbodiment of our best ideals in other lands, and it is 
not surprising that shortly Grant and Fish should 
have found it necessary to take the negotiations with 
the British Government into their own hands, ex- 
cluding him entirely from the ultimate adjustment. 1 
To understand all this and how the Administra- 
tion's attitude toward Cuba and San Domingo helped 
to emphasize the split, one must first understand a 
clash of personalities, which came near to wrecking 
Grant's Administration at the beginning, and 
effects of which were felt long after Sumner's death. 

1 E. L. Godkin. writing from London, on April 15, 1860, said 
" Motley's appointment is a good one from the social point o 
view, bad, I think, in every other way. I do not think he has th< 
necessary mental furniture for the discussion of the questions no\ 
pending between England and America; and he is a little to 
ardent. His lectures here have been very disappointing, common 
place rhetorics without any thought. . . ." 

1 



CHAPTER XXXII 
ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 

On the very threshold of his Administration Grant 
found confronting him the problem of our grievances 
against Great Britain which had been accumulating 
ever since her recognition of Confederate belligerency 
in the first year of the Civil War. Upon the heels 
of recognition — a perfectly legitimate proceeding, 
although resented bitterly throughout the North — • 
had come the devastating cruises of the Alabama, 
Florida, and Shenandoah, fitted out in British yards, 
under the eyes of British functionaries, and manned 
with Confederate naval officers with the express de- 
sign of preying on our foreign commerce. 

Charles Francis Adams, our Minister at London, 
had demanded reparation for damage caused by the 
British-built Confederate cruisers, but the British 
Government toward the end of 1865 had some- 
what curtly declined consideration of our claims and 
nothing further was done about it until in August, 
1868, Reverdy Johnson arrived in London as Min- 
ister by Johnson's appointment and undertook with- 
out delay negotiations looking toward a settlement. 
\ noticeable change had come upon the spirit of Eng- 



294, ULYSSES S. GRANT 

lish statesmen confronted with the probability of 
an embroilment in continental quarrels. They were 
now glad to reach an understanding with the United 
States so that the precedent established by the Ala- 
bama case might not be used to justify the fitting out 
of hostile cruisers in American ports to prey on Eng- 
lish commerce in event of war. 

Johnson was welcomed with effusiveness, and he 
was flattered by the marked attentions he received. 
He entered joyfully on a career of after-dinner ora- 
tory, gushed over those who had been most ostenta- 
tious in their sympathy for the Confederate cause, 
shook hands in public with Laird, who bragged about 
having built the Alabama, and went so far in his 
endeavor to ingratiate himself in his new post as to 
arouse distrust at home. When in January he con- 
cluded with the British Foreign Secretary the John- 
son-Clarendon Convention, both he and Seward were 
dazed to find that terms which twelve months earlier 
would have been ratified with little opposition were 
now resented by the Senate and the people as the re- 
sult of truckling to the English Government by a 
tuft-hunting diplomat. Besides, feeling against Eng- 
land had grown more bitter. The sympathy for Ii 
land in her struggle for home rule was gaining 
strength, and Fenian border raids against Canad; 
had become a factor to be considered. 



ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 295 

The convention was carried over into the new Ad- 
ministration, and when it came up for action in the 
Senate, it was almost literally without a friend. Rati- 
fication was defeated by a vote of 54 to 1, on April 
13, 1869. The debate consisted chiefly in a speech 
by Sumner for which there was no need and which 
might much better never have been uttered. But 
Sumner, never discreet, insisted upon a spoken rec- 
ord of his attitude, and his impassioned attack upon 
Great Britain, from which the ban of secrecy was 
removed by formal vote, went into history to be- 
come a mischief -breeding influence on subsequent 
events. 

It was close upon the heels of the rejection of the 
Johnson-Clarendon Convention, while Sumner's extra- 
ordinary demands still stirred public imagination, 
that Motley was named as Johnson's successor at 
the Court of St. James. Charles Francis Adams, the 
elder, recently returned from the British mission 
and watching at home the progress of affairs, wrote 
privately that the practical effect of Sumner's speech 
and the rejection of the treaty was " to raise the scale 
of our demands for reparation so very high that there 
is no chance of negotiation left, unless the English 
have lost all their spirit and character." Sumner 
with splendid efflorescence of mathematics had fig- 
ured that our direct or individual losses "due to the 



296 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

foraging of the Alabama" were $15,000,000, but this 
modest sum left without recognition "the vaster 
damage to commerce driven from the ocean," which 
he reckoned at $110,000,000, and he added, "Of 
course this is only an item in our bill." 

He traced the prolongation of the war directly to 
England. "The rebellion was originally encouraged 
by hope of support from England," he cried; " it was 
strengthened at once by the concession of belligerent 
rights on the ocean; it was fed to the end by British 
supplies . . . ; it was quickened into frantic life with 
every report from the British pirates, flaming anew 
with every burning ship; nor can it be doubted that 
without British intervention the rebellion would have 
soon succumbed under the well-directed efforts of the 
National Government. Not weeks nor months but 
years were added in this way to our war, so full of 
costly sacrifice." 

Calculating that the rebellion was suppressed at a 
cost of more than $4,000,000,000 and that through 
British intervention the war was doubled in duration, 
he came easily to the conclusion that England was 
chargeable with half the total expenditure, or 
$2,000,000,000, making our entire bill against her 
$2,125,000,000, at a low estimate. This sounded 
large and bellicose, but the explanation seems to be 
that Sumner had no intention either of collecting 



AKBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 297 

such a claim or of risking war with England to en- 
force it. What Sumner had in mind was not the 
collection of an enormous indemnity in money, but 
rather the adjustment of all differences through an- 
nexation of British territory and the withdrawal of 
the British flag from North America. 

The annexation of Canada, especially in view of 
the aggressive Irish sentiment at the time and the 
recurring Fenian demonstrations, was not a prepos- 
terous proposal, but there was a difference of opinion 
as to how best to go about it. Chandler in the Sen- 
ate had suggested that it was an essential to continue 
peace: "We cannot afford to have our enemies' base 
so near us. It is a national necessity that we should 
have the British possessions. I hope that such a ne- 
gotiation will be opened and that it will be a peace- 
ful one; but if it should not be, and England insists 
on war, then let the war be short, sharp, and deci- 
sive." We have Grant's own authority for believing 
that he would not have been afraid of such an out- 
come. He thought at one time during the year that 
Sheridan could have taken Canada in thirty days. 
Moreover, British statesmen did not set such store 
on their American possessions fifty years ago as later, 
and they might have welcomed a separation effected 
in a creditable way. The real obstacle to annexation 
lay with the Canadians themselves, who have never 



298 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

seen the time when they did not prefer connection 
with the mother country to union with our own. 

Grant was an expansionist as much as Sumner, but 
he looked upon expansion to the north more as a 
military problem than a question of sentiment. His 
mind dwelt much more readily on territorial extension 
■to the south. Cuba, San Domingo, and Mexico, with 
their untold natural resources awaiting the inspira- 
tion of American development, appealed to him with 
greater force than the barren stretches of the Cana- 
dian Northwest, and here is where he differed radi- 
cally from Sumner, who, throughout a tempestuous 
career in studying his political compass, had been 
accustomed to associate the North with human lib- 
erty and the South with slaves. 

It was in this divergence between Grant and 
Sumner that Fish, the conservative, unimaginative 
lawyer, elevated against his own inclination to be 
Secretary of State, found an opportunity for wise and 
courageous service. Sumner assumed that in his ca- 
pacity as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Re- 
lations and leader of the Senate, the shaping of the 
foreign policy would now devolve upon him. Motley, 
his lifelong friend, was unconsciously under his in- 
fluence, and might also be said in his new mission to 
regard himself as representing Sumner rather than 
the President or the Secretary of State. 



ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 299 

Motley's first act after confirmation was to pre- 
pare a memorandum which he handed to Fish out- 
lining the instructions which should be given him. 
The memorandum might as well have been dictated 
by Sumner, so accurately did it reflect his views. It 
questioned the advisability of trying to renew ne- 
gotiations, dilated on the Queen's proclamation of 
May, 1861, recognizing Southern belligerency, as a 
wrong committed by Great Britain and deeply felt 
by the American people, — a sense of wrong declared 
gravely, solemnly, without passion, and not to be 
expunged by a mere money payment to reimburse 
a few captures and conflagrations at sea. 

Grant was disposed to let Motley go ahead; but 
Fish, already sensible of his new responsibilities, had 
other things in view. In the first place, he had deter- 
mined if possible to reopen negotiations and bring 
them to a successful conclusion. In the second place, 
events in Cuba were so shaping themselves as to 
affect the manner of our approach to the British prob- 
lem. He took his own time in preparing Motley's 
instructions, and when completed, they bore little 
resemblance to the memorandum submitted. He 
declared that in spite of the failure of the Johnson- 
Clarendon Convention the Government of the United 
States did not abandon hope of "an early, satisfac- 
tory, and friendly settlement of the questions depend- 



300 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ing between the two Governments " and expressed the 
President's hope that the suspension of negotiations 
would be regarded by Her Majesty's Government, as 
it was by him, "as wholly in the interest of, and solely 
with a view to, an early and friendly settlement." 
Nothing here about "massive grievance," "indi- 
rect claims," " immense and infinite damages," or 
"ill-omened" and "fatal" proclamation which had 
" opened the flood-gates to infinite woes." 

Fish always thought that negotiations could be 
conducted more satisfactorily in Washington than 
London; and within a week after the rejection of the 
Johnson-Clarendon Convention he had written to a 
friend: "Whenever negotiations are renewed, the 
atmosphere and the surroundings of this side of the 
water are more favorable to a proper solution of the 
question than the dinner tables and the public ban- 
quetings of England." This was before he had op- 
portunity to appraise the diplomatic skill of Mot- 
ley and before he had been regaled with a perusal 
of Motley's memorandum. 

Motley reached England with his revised instruc- 
tions early in May, 18G9, still imbued with Sumner's 
conception of the measureless injury done the L T nion 
cause by the proclamation of belligerency. So com- 
plete was his misapprehension of the purpose of his 
mission that in his first interview with Lord Claren- 






ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 301 

don he laid special stress upon the proclamation as 
" the fountain head of the disasters which had been 
caused to the American people, both individually and 
collectively." With the submission to his superior 
of the report of this interview, Motley's career as a 
diplomat may fairly be said to have come to an end. 

John Russell Young reports Grant as saying at 
Edinburgh in 1877, "Mr. Motley had to be in- 
structed. The instructions were prepared very care- 
fully, and after Governor Fish and I had gone over 
them for the last time, I wrote an addendum charg- 
ing him that above all things he should handle the 
subject of the Alabama claims with the greatest deli- 
cacy. Mr. Motley, instead of obeying his implicit 
instructions, deliberately fell in line with Sumner and 
thus added insult to the previous injury. As soon 
as I heard of it, I went over to the State Department 
and told Governor Fish to dismiss Motley at once. I 
was very angry indeed, and I have been sorry many 
a time since that I did not stick to my first deter- 
mination. Mr. Fish advised delay, because of Sum- 
ner's position in the Senate and his attitude on the 
treaty question. We did not want to stir him up 
just then. We dispatched a severe note of censure to 
Motley at once and asked him to abstain from any 
further connection with these questions." 

Motley's subsequent residence in England, how- 



302 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ever creditable and brilliant may have been its per- 
sonal and social aspects, had little bearing upon 
results except as it may have retarded them. The 
negotiations leading to the Treaty of Washington 
and the settlement of the Alabama claims, through 
the Geneva Tribunal, were carried on to a successful 
conclusion in Washington without his participation. 
The final request for his resignation and his summary 
removal, though figuring dramatically in the history 
of the time, had no effect upon our diplomatic negoti- 
ations with the country to which he was accredited, 
though in part incidental to them. 

It was through Caleb Cushing that the first steps 
were taken toward a renewal of negotiations. As 
counsel before the joint tribunal arbitrating the 
claims of the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Com- 
panies under the Treaty of 1863, he had made the 
acquaintance of John Rose, acting as British Com- 
missioner, a man of prominence in Canadian public 
life described as "a natural diplomat of a high or- 
der." By suggestion of Rose, who may have spoken 
with authority, dishing arranged an interview in 
Washington between Rose and Fish. On July 8, just 
four weeks after Motley's unhappy interview with 
Clarendon, they came together, and while Motley 
was discoursing despondently in London about "a 
path surrounded by peril" and "grave and disas- 



ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 303 

trous misunderstandings and cruel war," Fish and 
Rose were already well advanced on the road to a 
renewal of negotiations. 

These informal exchanges continued through the 
summer and autumn. Sumner, not yet alienated 
from Fish, was cognizant of them. He was even ad- 
vised, although no names were given, of a letter now 
historic, in which Rose, writing from London, asked : 
" Is your representative here a gentleman of the most 
conciliatory spirit? ... I think I understood you to 
say that you thought negotiations would be more 
likely to be attended with satisfactory results, if they 
were transferred to and were concluded at Washing- 
ton; because you could from time to time communi- 
cate confidentially with leading Senators and know 
how far you could carry that body with you. . . . But 
again is your representative of that mind? And how 
is it to be brought about? By a new or a special 
envoy — as you spoke of — or quietly through Mr. 
Thornton?" Sumner not only ignored the intended 
hint for Motley's benefit, but treated it as an anon- 
ymous attack entitled to contempt; while Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, the loving and loyally biased bio- 
grapher of Motley, writing in 1879, two years after 
Motley's death, refers to the then unnamed writer as 
a faithless friend, a disguised enemy, a secret emis- 
sary, or an injudicious alarmist." 



304 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

After the earlier steps coincident with sending 
Motley to London, Grant gave Fish a free hand with 
the British Foreign Office. But Fish could never 
have succeeded in his diplomacy if he had not felt 
Grant behind him all the time, approving him in 
every stand he made, and giving him unfaltering 
support. It would be hard to say to which belongs 
the greater credit for the final diplomatic triumph, 
Grant or Fish; but the responsibility for success or 
failure lay with Grant. 

In his first annual message of December 6, 1869, . 
Grant commented with approval on the rejection of 
the Johnson-Clarendon Convention. "The injuries 
resulting to the United States by reason of the course 
adopted by Great Britain during our late Civil War 
. . . could not be adjusted and satisfied as ordinary 
commercial claims, which continually arise between 
commercial nations, and yet the convention treated 
them as such ordinary claims, from which they differ 
more widely in the gravity of their character than in 
the magnitude of their amount, great even as is that 
difference. Not a word was found in the treaty, and 
not an inference could be drawn from it, to remove 
the sense of unfriendliness of the course of Great 
Britain in our struggle for existence which had so 
deeply and universally impressed itself upon the peo- 
ple of this country." The rejection of the treaty, 



ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 305 

"thus misconceived in its scope and inadequate in 
its provisions," he regarded as in the interest of 
peace. " A sensitive people, conscious of their power, 
are more at ease under a great wrong, wholly un- 
atoned, than under the restraint of a settlement 
which satisfies neither their ideas of justice nor 
their grave sense of the grievances they have sus- 
tained." 

He expressed the hope that the time might soon 
arrive " when the two Governments may approach 
the solution of this momentous question with an ap- 
preciation of what is due the rights, dignity, and 
honor of each, and with the determination not only 
to remove the causes of complaint in the past, but to 
lay the foundation of a broad principle of public law 
which will prevent future differences and tend to firm 
and continued peace and friendship." How fully this 
hope was realized will appear in the result. 

The Franco-Prussian War came in to help, for 
England, in the face of trouble on the Continent, was 
getting ready in the fall of 1870 to bring about a suit- 
able adjustment of all outstanding quarrels. Grant 
seized the opportunity in his second annual message, 
December 5, 1870, to stimulate the British Foreign 
Office to greater haste. He regretted to say "that no 
conclusion has been reached for the adjustment of 
the claims against Great Britain growing out of the 



300 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

course adopted by that Government during the re- 
bellion. The Cabinet of London, so far as its views 
have been expressed, does not appear to be willing to 
concede that Her Majesty's Government was guilty 
of any negligence or did or permitted any act during 
the war by which the United States has just cause of 
complaint. Our firm and unalterable convictions are 
directly the reverse." He therefore recommended 
the appointment of a commission "to take proof of 
the amount and ownership of these several claims," 
and that authority be given for settlement of these 
claims by the United States so that the Government 
would have ownership of the private claims as well as 
the responsible control of all the demands against 
Great Britain ; and he added that whenever Her Maj- 
esty's Government should desire a " full and friendly 
adjustment," the United States would enter upon a 
consideration of the claims "with an earnest desire 
for a conclusion consistent with the honor and dig- 
nity of both nations." 

The passage containing this hint appeared in the 
London newspapers on December 6, 1870. Exactly 
five weeks later, on January 9, 1871, Mr. Rose, hav- 
ing hurried from London, dined with Mr. Fish in 
Washington, and before the evening was over the 
tw r o had agreed on a confidential memorandum which 
was to be the basis of negotiations. From that day 



ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 307 

until the signing of the Treaty of Washington on 
May 8, 1871, events moved in orderly progress under 
the firm guidance of the Secretary of State. 

Sumner had broken completely with both Grant 
and Fish over the San Domingo affair during the 
negotiations, but he was still at the head of the 
"first committee of the Senate," a place which he 
regarded as "equal in position to anything in our 
Government under the President"; and Fish, with 
his eye fixed on the success of his undertaking, ar- 
ranged through Patterson, another member of the 
Foreign Relations Committee, for an interview at 
Sumner's house. He left with Sumner on January 15 
the written memorandum of his understanding with 
Rose. It was returned by Sumner two days later 
with a note admitting the propriety of Sir John 
Rose's idea that "all questions and causes of irrita- 
tion between England and the United States should 
be removed absolutely and forever" and that "all 
points of difference should be considered together"; 
and concluding with this proposition: "The greatest 
trouble, if not peril, being a constant source of anxi- 
ety and disturbance, is from Fenianism, which is ex- 
cited by the British flag in Canada. Therefore the 
withdrawal of the British flag cannot be abandoned 
as a condition or preliminary of such a settlement as 
is now proposed. To make the settlement complete, 



308 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the withdrawal should be from this hemisphere in- 
cluding provinces and islands." 

An astounding suggestion it seems, and coming 
from the chairman of the committee which would 
have to pass upon any treaty for which they might 
pave the way, not an encouragement to further par- 
ley along the lines which the negotiations had in 
view; but Fish and Rose, with Grant's fixed approval, 
took no account of Sumner's comment and went 
ahead with their arrangements without considering 
impossible demands. 

The British Minister submitted a proposal for the 
appointment of a Joint High Commission, to be com- 
posed of members to be named by each Government, 
to hold its session at Washington, and to treat and 
discuss the mode of settling the different questions 
which had arisen out of the fisheries, as well as those 
affecting the relations of the United States toward 
the British possessions in North America. Fish, 
backed by Grant, insisted that the Alabama question JC 
should be within the scope of discussion and settle- \ 
ment by the commission, and the British Govern- 
ment assented. 

Grant, on February 9, 1871, nominated as com- 
missioners on the part of the United States: Hamil- j 
ton Fish, Secretary of State; Robert C. Schenck, |»itl 
Minister to Great Britain; Samuel Nelson, Associate it] 



ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 309 

Justice of the Supreme Court; Ebenezer R. Hoar, of 
Massachusetts; George H. Williams, of Oregon. If 
it had not been for Sumner's unreasonableness and 
Motley's petulance, the historian of the Dutch Re- 
public might well have been a member of the com- 
mission, thus adding luster to his fine career. 

The British members were: Earl de Grey and Ri- 
pon, a member of Gladstone's Cabinet; Sir Stafford 
Northcote, a conservative leader in Parliament; Sir 
Edward Thornton, British Minister in Washington; 
Professor Montague Bernard, of Oxford University; 
and Sir John A. Macdonald, the Premier of Canada. 

Within six weeks the British and American Joint 
High Commission were at work in Washington upon 
the treaty. When it was laid before the Senate, on 
the 10th of May, Sumner was no longer at the head 
of the Committee upon the chairmanship of which he 
set such store. He had been deposed in March, for 
reasons not directly bearing on the negotiations with 
Great Britain, though, as it seems to-day, the ratifi- 
cation of a treaty was so vital to the maintenance of 
friendly relations with Great Britain, that the un- 
precedented action of the Senate might have been 
justified by that alone. 

Shorn of his place Sumner accepted the treaty 
with reasonable grace. It was ratified in due course 
on May 24, 1871. The principle of arbitration in in- 



310 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ternational disputes had won its first great triumph. 
Great Britain appointed as its arbitrator Chief Jus- 
tice Alexander Cockburn; the United States, Charles 
Francis Adams. The King of Italy, the President of 
the Swiss Confederation, and the Emperor of Brazil 
named three neutral arbitrators. Lord Tenterden 
was the British agent and Sir Roundell Palmer the 
counsel. J. C. Bancroft Davis, Assistant Secretary 
of State, was agent for the United States. The Amer- 
ican counsel were William M. Evarts, Caleb Cushing, 
and Morrison R. Waite. 

The Board of Arbitration met at Geneva, on De- 
cember 15, 1871, and in the following September 
it had done its work. But even to the very last the 
shadow of Sumner's "massive grievance" and "in- 
direct claims" hung over it threatening in the crude- 
ness of the manner of their presentation more than 
once to bring the arbitration to a futile end. Had it 
not been for the firmness, tact, and diplomatic com- 
prehension of Charles Francis Adams the arbitration 
would have broken on those issues. On September 2, 
by a vote of four to one at the twenty-ninth confer- 
ence, the tribunal decided to award in gross the sum 
of $15,500,000, to be paid in gold by Great Britain 
to the United States for the damage done by the 
Florida, Alabama, and Shenandoah. Cockburn alone 
dissented. 



ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN 311 

Thus Grant must have the credit for establishing 
the principle of arbitration in international disputes; 
for this was brought about by reason of the firmness 
with which he held to the validity of American de- 
mands. If anywhere along the line his conduct had 
been marked by vacillation, the result could not have 
been achieved. To him must also go the credit of 
being among the earliest to encourage the principle 
of a World's Congress, as afterwards embodied in 
the Hague Tribunal, when to the Arbitration Union 
in Birmingham he said: "Nothing would afford me 
greater happiness than to know that, as I believe 
will be the case, at some future day, the nations of 
the earth will agree upon some sort of congress, 
which will take cognizance of international questions 
of difficulty, and whose decisions will be as bind- 
ing as the decisions of our Supreme Court are upon 
us. It is a dream of mine that some such solution 
may be." 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 

In the geography of the Western Hemisphere Hayti 
and San Domingo are insignificant. Among the 
Latin American republics they cut no figure ; yet they 
have had influence on the politics of the United 
States quite out of keeping with their own impor- 
tance. It is a rare administration which passes with^. 
out unhappy experience with one or the other of 
these misadventures in negro self-government. Grant 
found in San Domingo a tragedy of his career — his 
first unqualified defeat. 

Although once nominally united, the two sections 
of the island had been independent revolutionary 
centers for twenty-five years. Hayti, originally un- 
der the control of France, occupied a third of the 
island and had four fifths of the population. San 
Domingo, which had been a colony of Spain, though 
sparsely settled, furnished frequent rotations in its 
crops of insurrection. For some years, two leaders, 
Baez and Cabral, had taken turns at being president, i 
sometimes through violence tempered by a popular 
primary, sometimes through violence alone. 

Baez at the time was called by enemies of Grant 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 313 

a mercenary adventurer, but Andrew D. White, who 
talked with him in Domingo, describes him as a man 
of force and ability, a light mulatto with none of the 
characteristics generally attributed in the United 
States to men of mixed blood. "In all his conduct 
he showed quiet self-reliance, independence, and the 
tone of a high-spirited gentleman. His; family was 
noted in the history of the island and held large es- 
tates near the capital city. . . . There was a quiet 
elegance in his manners and conversation which would 
have done credit to any statesman in any country. 
... I have never doubted that his overtures to 
General Grant were patriotic. As long as he could re- 
member he had known nothing in his country but a 
succession of sterile revolutions which had destroyed 
all its prosperity and nearly all its population." 

During Johnson's Administration, Baez, out of 
power for a while, had come to Washington seeking 
intervention. In 1868 he had another term as presi- 
dent; while Cabral hovered on the Haytian border, 
waiting to pounce on him again. Baez sent a confi- 
dential agent to Washington, and Johnson in his 
last annual message, at Seward's instigation, recom- 
mended the annexation of the entire island. 

Baez repeated his overtures almost as soon as the 
new Administration was installed. He met with scant 
consideration at first except from Grant himself, who 



314 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

saw in San Domingo not only rich natural resources, 
but a refuge for the colored people of the South. 

The project of annexation seems to have grown 
upon Grant before the Secretary of State or other 
members of the Cabinet were fully aware of it. There 
was talk about it in Cabinet meetings to which Grant 
listened without comment, and it was generally un- 
derstood that the policy of the Administration was 
against intervention, until one day in May Grant 
casually remarked that as the navy seemed to want 
Samana Bay for a coaling-station, he thought he 
would send General Babcock down to report upon it 
as an engineer. 

Orville E. Babcock, who had been one of Grant's 
staff in the later years of the war, and was now de- 
tailed at the White House as an assistant private 
secretary, was a young man of great personal charm, 
energetic, intelligent, and a competent military en- 
gineer; but through his indiscreet activities and dubi 
ous associations he contrived in one way and anoth 
to get Grant into all kinds of trouble. WhatevJ 
merit there may have been in the proposed annexa- 
tion, there was very little in Babcock's part in it, for 
which Grant with his customary loyalty accepted 
full responsibility. Babcock started for San Domingo 
in July, 1869, under instructions from the State de- 
partment to make a complete inquiry into the pop- 






THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 315 

ulation and resources of the island. A naval vessel 
was placed at his disposal. 

On September 4 Babcock executed with the Do- 
minican authorities a protocol which stipulated for 
the annexation of the Dominican Republic with the 
payment of $1,500,000 by the United States for the 
extinction of the Dominican debt. In the body of 
the protocol he assumed the ambitious title of "Aide- 
de-camp to His Excellency Ulysses S. Grant, Presi- 
dent of the United States of America," and added 
the extraordinary pledge that the President "prom- 
ises privately to use all his influence in order that the 
idea of annexing the Dominican Republic to the 
. United States may acquire such a degree of popular- 
ity among members of Congress as will be necessary 
for its accomplishment." 

Fish was astounded when he discovered what 
Babcock had brought back with him. "What do you 
think?" he exclaimed to Jacob D. Cox. "Babcock 's 
back and has actually brought a treaty for the ces- 
sion of San Domingo; yet I pledge you my word he 
had no more diplomatic authority than any other 
casual visitor to that island ! " Fish would have ended 
the incident there and forgotten it. He did not 
dream that Grant would father Babcock's queer 
performance. 

At the next Cabinet meeting Grant began by say- 



316 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ing, " Babcock has returned, as you see, and has 
brought a treaty of annexation. I suppose it is not 
formal, as he had no diplomatic powers; but we can 
easily cure that. We can send back the treaty, and 
have Perry, the consular agent, sign it; and as he is 
an officer of the State Department it would make it 
all right." 

There was an awkward silence, broken finally by 
Cox, who asked, "But, Mr. President, has it been 
settled, then, that we want to annex San Domingo?' 
Grant colored and smoked hard at his cigar. Fish 
was impassive, his eyes fixed on the portfolio before 
him. There was no response from any one. "As the 
silence became painful," writes Cox, "the President 
called for another item of business and left the 
question unanswered. The subject was never again 
brought up before the assembled Cabinet." 

Fish was in an intolerable position. Not only 
had his department been compromised by Babcock's 
undertaking, but his own sincerity was called in 
question because in frequent conversations with 
Sumner he had always treated the talk of annexation 
as idle gossip. He tendered his resignation. Grant 
begged him to stay. He wanted San Domingo, but 
he needed Fish; and the Secretary, ambitious to 
bring the negotiations with Great Britain to a suc- 
cessful issue, yielded in San Domingo in order that 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 317 

he might achieve the greater end. Babcock was sent 
back to San Domingo, where he concluded two treat- 
ies, one for annexation, the other for the lease of the 
Bay of Samana, giving at the same time the Presi- 
dent's guaranty to the Dominican Republic against 
all foreign intervention until the treaties could be 
submitted to the Dominican people, a guaranty 
which was enforced for months by ships of our navy 
under Secretary Robeson's explicit instructions. 

Leaving our men-of-war in the neighborhood to 
insure protection to Baez, Babcock came back to 
Washington in December bringing his treaties with 
him. Congress was in holiday recess and Grant under- 
took to assure himself of the support of Sumner who 
was one of the few Senators remaining in town. 

On the evening of the first Sunday in January the 
President called at Sumner's house and found him 
at dinner with two friends, Ben: Perley Poore, the 
Washington correspondent, and Colonel John W. 
Forney, the Secretary of the Senate. This interview 
played a vital part in the subsequent history of the 
Administration and marked the beginning of the 
irreconcilable breach between Grant and Sumner. 
Grant always contended that Sumner promised to 
support the treaty. Sumner denied that he had done 
anything of the kind. Of the two witnesses Forney 
subsequently expressed the opinion that Grant was 



318 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

justified in feeling he could count on Sumner's back- 
ing; while Poore declared that "the President and 
the Senator misunderstood each other." 

According to Poore, Grant did not have the treaties 
or any memorandum of them with him. He dwelt 
especially upon the expenditure by General Babcock 
of a large sum taken from a secret service fund for 
promoting intercourse with the West Indies and im- 
pressed Sumner with the idea that he feared an at- 
tack in Congress over that expenditure. "While I 
know," wrote Poore in 1877, "that Mr. Sumner 
thought that the President had come to enlist his 
services in defending this expenditure by General 
Babcock, I have no doubt but that the President 
meant (as Colonel Forney thought and as I thought) 
the treaty for the acquisition of the Dominican Re- 
public." 

The President promised to send General Babcock 
to call on the Senator the next day, with copies of the 
papers, and left. As Mr. Sumner escorted him to the 
door he said, according to Forney: "Well, Mr. Presi- 
dent, I am a Republican and an Administration man, 
and I will do all I can to make your Administration a 
success. I will give the subject my best thought and 
will do all I can rightly and considerately to aid you." 
Sumner gave his own version in the speech he made in 
the Senate December 21, 1870, as follows: "I have 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 319 

heard it said that I assured the President that I 
would support the Administration in this measure. 
Never! He may have formed that opinion, but never 
did I say anything to justify it; nor did I suppose he 
could have failed to appreciate the reserve with 
which I spoke. My language, I repeat, was precise, 
well considered, and chosen in advance; 'I am an 
Administration man, and whatever you do will al- 
ways find in me the most careful and candid consid- 
eration.' In this statement I am positive. It was 
early fixed in my mind and I know that I am right." 
Upon such seemingly slight divergences of view 
depended subsequent events. Upon a difference in 
interpretation of a single sentence, Grant had no 
right to charge Sumner later with a breach of faith, 
but there was another feature seldom alluded to by 
the historians of the time which contributed to the 
bitterness. Sumner always maintained and declared 
frequently in conversation that Grant was intoxi- 
cated that day, and the charge undoubtedly reached 
Grant's ears. Poore says that Grant was "not in the 
slightest degree under the influence of alcohol." He 
thinks that Sumner drew his inference from the fact 
Ithat, before the subject of San Domingo came up for 
consideration at all, the President became intem- 
perately angry and "expressed himself with more 
warmth than I ever saw him display either before or 



320 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

since that evening," in discussing the case of ex- 
Representative Ashley, of Ohio, who had been de- 
posed from his position as Governor of Montana, 
whom Sumner was anxious to see restored and whom 
Grant hotly denounced as a mischief-maker and a 
worthless fellow. 

Babcock called on Sumner the next day with cop- 
ies of the treaties, and Sumner plainly indicated his 
displeasure with the terms. He resented it that the 
President of the United States should be pledged to 
lobby the treaty through the Senate and this resent- 
ment intensified the prejudice he held against the an- 
nexation project as a whole, feeling as he did that the 
extinction of the Black Republic would be a wrong 
to the negro who had there an opportunity to work 
out a problem in self-government. On January 18 the 
treaties were laid before the Committee on Foreign 
Relations and a majority of the Committee expressed 
their disapproval. 

Grant, quick to learn the Committee's attitude, 
became more set than ever in his purpose. He sum- 
moned Senators to the White House; he camped out 
in the President's room at the Capitol and begged 
one after another personally to support the treaties. 
But it was all in vain. The treaties lay with the 
Committee till March 15, when an adverse report 
was voted. Sumner, Schurz, Patterson, Cameron, 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 321 

and Casserly in favor of rejection; Morton and 
Harlan against. Grant still persisted in the face ^ 
of defeat apparently assured. Two days after the 
adverse report he visited the Senate and sent for 
fourteen Senators to meet him. He continued his 
activities while the annexation treaty was under 
consideration, and while it was laid aside for weeks 
without action. 1 The day before the vote in Com- 
mittee he had sent a brief message urging favorable 
action and expressing the earnest wish that the Sen- 
ate would not permit the treaty to expire by limita- 
tion. On May 31 he sent another message urging an 

1 Sckurz tells how Grant, meeting him at a reception, asked 
him to the White House where he plunged forthwith into the 
subject he had at heart. " I hear you are a member of the Senate 
Committee that has the San Domingo treaty under consideration," 
he said, " and I wish you would support that treaty. Won't you do 
that?" Schurz said frankly he could not do so, and proceeded to 
give his reasons at considerable length and with great earnestness. 
" At first the President listened to me with evident interest, looking 
at me as if the objections to the treaty which I expressed were 
quite new to him, and made an impression on his mind. But after 
a while I noticed that his eyes wandered about the room and I 
became doubtful whether he listened to me at all. When I had 
stopped he sat silent for a minute or two. I, of course, sat silent, 
too, waiting for him to speak. At last he said in a perfectly calm 
tone as if nothing had happened: 'Well, I hope you will at least 
vote for the confirmation of Mr. Jones, whom I have selected for a 
foreign mission.' " Schurz had never heard of Jones and when his 
name came before the Foreign Relations Committee a few days 
later, after his nomination to be Minister to Belgium, it appeared 
that other members of the committee were equally in the dark. 
He was interested in street-car lines in Chicago and was subse- 
quently confirmed. 



322 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

extension of time and pressing with fervor the ad- 
vantages of annexation. 

"I feel an unusual anxiety," he said, "for the rati- 
fication of this treaty, because I believe it will re- 
dound greatly to the glory of the two countries inter- 
ested, to civilization and to the extirpation of the 
institution of slavery. The doctrine promulgated by 
President Monroe has been adhered to by all politi- 
cal parties, and I now deem it proper to assert the 
equally important principle that hereafter no terri- 
tory on this continent shall be regarded as subject to 
transfer to a European power. The Government of 
San Domingo has voluntarily sought this annexation. 
It is a weak power numbering probably less than 
120,000 souls, and yet possessing one of the rich- 
est territories under the sun, capable of supporting 
a population of 10,000,000 people in luxury. . . . 
The acquisition of San Domingo is an adherence to! 
the 'Monroe Doctrine'; it is a measure of national 
protection; it is asserting our just claim to a con- 
trolling influence over the great commercial traffic 
soon to flow from east to west by the way of the Isth- 
mus of Darien; it is to build up our merchant marine; 
it is to furnish new markets for the products of our 
farms, shops, and manufactories; it is to make slav- 
ery insupportable in Cuba and Porto Rico at once, 
and ultimately so in Brazil; it is to settle the unhappy 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 323 

condition of Cuba and end an exterminating conflict; 
it is to provide honest means of paying our honest 
debts, without overtaxing the people; it is to furnish 
our citizens with the necessaries of everyday life at 
cheaper rates than ever before; and it is in fine a 
rapid stride toward that greatness which the intelli- 
gence, industry, and enterprise of the citizens of the 
United States entitle this country to assume among 
nations." 

Thus Grant's conception of the importance of an- 
nexation fattened on opposition, and when, on June 
30, ratification was defeated by a tie vote in the Sen- 
ate, 28 to 28, his anger was proportionately intense, 
especially against Sumner, who he believed had 
proved faithless after giving him assurance of sup- 
port. In debate the Senator had denounced the 
manner of negotiations, and had bitterly assailed 
Babcock as Grant's personal emissary. Busybodies 
were quick to instill in Grant's mind the suspicion 
that charges of fraud and corruption which were 
widely spread really emanated from Sumner, so that 
Grant's resentment centered on the Massachusetts 
Senator. When, the day after the rejection of the 
treaty, Fish by Grant's direction asked Motley for 
lis resignation the general conclusion was inevita- 
ble that this was an act of reprisal against Motley's 
riend and sponsor. 



324 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Grant never admitted this and Motley had been 
for months in bad favor with the Administration, 
owing partly to his early ineptness in the negotia- 
tions with Great Britain and partly to lack of tact in 
his dealings with the President, as when he refused to 
appoint young Nicholas Fish as one of his secretaries 
when Grant personally requested it. Adam Badeau 
declares that on May 15, six weeks before the vote on 
the treaty, Grant told him at the ^Yhite House that 
he was going to remove Motley. 

That a change in the English mission had been 
under advisement for some time before the rejection 
of the treaty, appears from Sumner's own statement 
in his subsequent recital of his grounds for grievance 
against the Administration. Fish, now loyally sup- 
porting the San Domingo project and at the time 
still friendly to Sumner, two weeks before the final 
vote, had a three hours' conference at the Senator's 
house one night, pressing his views, and in the course 
of conversation asked, "AYhy not go to London? I 
offer you the English mission. It is yours." Sumner 
coolly replied, "We have a minister there who can- 
not be bettered." He afterwards cited this sugges- 
tion as an attempt to influence him improperly. Fish 
said the suggestion was made impulsively through 
sympathy for Sumner, who had just referred to his 
domestic troubles. Whether it was fairly susceptible 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 325 

to a sinister interpretation or not, it would certainly 
indicate that even before the adverse vote upon the 
treaty Motley's tenure was uncertain. 

There came also then a sudden request for the 
resignation of Attorney-General Hoar, Sumner's only 
intimate friend in the Administration. Since Mas- 
sachusetts had two cabinet members, Hoar early in 
the Administration had placed his resignation in the 
hands of the President, but nothing had been done 
about it. Grant, who enjoyed Hoar's humor and 
companionship in spite of their divergent tastes, 
nominated him for a vacancy on the Supreme Bench 
in December, 1869, but Southern Senators, whom 
Hoar offended by refusing to honor their endorsement 
of unfit men for federal judges and marshals in the 
South, banded together in resentment and defeated 
his confirmation. "What could you expect for a man 
who had snubbed seventy Senators?" he remarked 
philosophically to his friends of the Saturday Club 
who were inclined to sympathize with him. 

One afternoon in June, shortly before the San Do- 
mingo treaty was to be voted on, he was suddenly 
asked for his resignation and was told frankly by 
Grant that he had been obliged to take the step in 
order to secure support in the Senate from South- 
ern Republicans, who demanded the Cabinet place 
for a Southern man. The President had no one in 



326 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

particular in mind for the place, but sent in the 
name of Akerman, of Georgia, the next day on Hoar's 
own suggestion that quick action would save em 
barrassment through Southern pressure for the 
place. 

Motley remained in London, touched to his sensi 
tive soul, broken in spirit, awaiting the summary 
removal which finally came in December. The ap 
proaches to Great Britain proceeded deftly and con 
tinuously. San Domingo slumbered; but naval ves 
sels hovered near her coasts. On the reconvening of 
> Congress on December 5, 1870, Grant revived the 
issue in his annual message. He asked for authority 
to negotiate a new treaty, and suggested a resolution 
of annexation, as in the case of Texas. "So convinced 
am I of the advantages to flow from the acquisition 
of San Domingo and the great disadvantages — I 
might almost say calamities — to flow from the non 
acquisition, that I believe the subject has only to be 
investigated to be approved." Morton, fearing the 
serious consequences of a defeat for the Administra 
tion, induced a compromise on a resolution to ap- 
point a commission of investigation, which he forth- 
with offered in the Senate. 

Sumner was in a rage. His wrath had been fed bj 
tales of tattlers. His indignation and intolerance hac 
grown through the summer. He "roared like the Bui 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 327 

of Bashan" when he got to discussing the President 
with his friends. Grant was equally bitter. 

Sumner up to this time had not attacked the 
President in open debate and now a better politician 
and a wiser lawyer would have let the San Domingo 
business alone, since it was plain that annexation 
either by treaty or joint resolution was dead. He 
could have consented gracefully to Morton's innocu- 
ous commission of investigation and that would have 
been the end of it ; but his fateful propensity for put- 
ting himself right in the record followed him now as 
at the time of the defeat of the Johnson-Clarendon 
Convention. Morton urged him to let the resolution 
pass without debate, but he refused; and though he 
was warned that if he attacked the Administration 
the President's friends would be forced to a defense, 
and an open rupture would result, he was immovable. 
He was obsessed with animosity, and even went so 
far as to assure Morton that his life had been threat- 
ened at the White House by Grant and Babcock. 
Morton could not laugh him out of his delusion. 

He made the attack on December 21, 1870, in a 
speech which he entitled "Naboth's Vineyard," be- 
ginning, "The resolution commits Congress to a 
dance of blood," intimating that Grant was following 
in the steps of Pierce, Buchanan, and Andrew John- 
! son, and speaking of the President in a manner 



328 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

" bitter and excited," according to Morton, who adds, 
"his course is generally regretted by his best friends 
of whom I am one." Chandler and Conkling made 
bitter personal attacks on Sumner. 

Morton's resolution was adopted in both House 
and Senate^A commission was appointed by the 
President consisting of Benjamin F. Wade, a radical 
Republican, Andrew D. White, an unbiased college 
president, and Samuel G. Howe, the abolitionist, a 
confidential friend of Sumner. This commission vis- 
ited San Domingo accompanied by many news- 
paper correspondents and by other observers, and 
returned favorable to annexation. They made a 
report to Congress containing a statement of facts 
and indicating the resources of the country. "The 
mere rejection by the Senate of a treaty negotiated by 
the President," said Grant in a message of April 5, 
1871, transmitting the report, "only indicates a dif- 
ference of opinion between two coordinate depart- 
ments of the Government, without touching the 
character or wounding the pride of either. But 
when such rejection takes place simultaneously with 
charges openly made of corruption on the part of 
the President or those employed by him, the case is 
different. Indeed, in such case the honor of the na- . 
tion demands investigation. This has been accom- | 
plished by the report of the commissioners herewith I 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 329 

transmitted, and which fully indicates the purity of 
the motives and action of those who represented the 
United States in the negotiation. . . . And now my 
task is finished and with it ends all personal solici- 
tude upon the subject. My duty being done, yours 
begins; and I gladly hand over the whole matter to 
the judgment of the American people, and of their rep- 
resentatives in Congress assembled. The facts will 
now be spread before the country, and a decision 
rendered by that tribunal whose convictions so sel- 
dom err, and against whose will I have no policy to 
enforce." Nothing further was ever done toward 
annexation, though Grant returned to the subject 
repeatedly in his messages to Congress expressing 
regret that his recommendations had not been fol- 
lowed. He reiterated his arguments years later in his 
book. Sumner's wrathful explosion had no effect 
whatever upon the ultimate result. It simply served 
to fan a feud, fateful alike to him and to the Ad- 
ministration he might have served. 

Andrew D. White, who entered on the inquiry 
with an open mind, sheds interesting light upon 
the character of Grant, whom he interviewed at the 
White House. "Instead of the taciturn man who, as 
his enemies insisted, said nothing because he knew 
nothing, had never cared for anything save military 
matters, and was entirely absorbed in personal in- 




330 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

terests, I found a quiet, dignified public officer, 
who presented the history of the Santo Domingo 
question, and his view regarding it, in a manner 
large, thoughtful, and statesmanlike. ... As I took 
leave of him he gave me one charge for which I shall 
always revere his memory. He said: ' . . . You have 
doubtless noticed hints in Congress and charges in 
various newspapers that I am financially interested 
in the acquisition of Santo Domingo. Now, as a 
man, as your fellow citizen, I demand that on your 
arrival in the island you examine thoroughly into all 
American interests there; that you study land titles 
and contracts with the utmost care; and that if you 
find anything whatever which connects me or any 
of my family with any of them, you expose me to 
the American people.' The President uttered these 
words in a tone of deep earnestness." 

However we may criticize the way Grant tried to 
force the San Domingo treaty through the Senate, he 
will be justified by history in his intent; for he fore- 
saw far in advance of others that some time the island 
must be a part of the United States. If we had taken 
over San Domingo when we had the opportunity, we 
should have been spared unpleasant complications 
and sordid scandals running through many years. 
Annexation will come about in time, but never with 
so little friction or expense. 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 331 

"In future while I hold my present office," Grant 
wrote in his second inaugural, "the subject of acqui- 
sition of territory must have the support of the peo- 
ple before I will recommend any proposition looking 
to such acquisition. I say here, however, that I do 
not share in the apprehension held by many as to 
the danger of governments becoming weakened and 
destroyed by reason of their extension of territory. 
Commerce, education, and rapid transit of thought 
and matter by telegraph and steam have changed all 
this. Rather do I believe that our Great Maker is 
preparing the world, in his own good time, to become 
one nation, speaking one language, and when armies 
and navies will be no longer required." 

The big results of an episode futile in itself soon 
began to show. Motley, continuing in office months 
beyond the time set for his resignation, was finally, in 
December, 1871, subjected to the humiliation of a 
summary recall, and Robert C. Schenck, of Ohio, a 
person of entirely different type, was named for 
London in his place, Frelinghuysen and Morton 
having both previously declined the appointment. 
Motley's last official act was to write a controver- 
sial history of his mission, for the Secretary of State, 
an earnest defense of his conduct in office and a crit- 
icism of his official superiors. He referred in this to 
the rumor that his removal was due to Sumner's 



332 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

opposition to the San Domingo treaty. Fish in his 
reply, which bears internal evidence of having been 
written by another for his signature, asserted that 
this rumor had its origin in Washington "in a source 
bitterly, personally, and vindictively hostile to the 
President." 

And then follows a passage which, when it camo to 
Sumner's eyes on the publication of the correspond- 
ence, angered him beyond restraint as a gross and 
wanton insult. "Mr. Motley must know — or if he 
does not know it he stands alone in his ignorance of 
the fact — that many Senators opposed the San Do- 
mingo treaty openly, generously, and with as much 
efficiency as did the distinguished Senator to whom he 
refers and have nevertheless continued to enjoy the 
undiminished confidence and the friendship of the 
President, than whom no man living is more tolerant 
of honest and manly differences of opinion; is more 
single or sincere in his desire for the public welfare, 
or more disinterested or regardless of what concerns 
himself; is more frank and confiding in his own deal- 
ings; is more sensitive to a betrayal of confidence or 
would look with more scorn and contempt upon one who 
uses the words and the assurances of friendship to cover 
a secret and determined purpose of hostility." 

On January 9 this correspondence was sent to the 
Senate. Sumner up to that time, in spite of his aliena- 



THE SAN DOMINGO TRAGEDY 333 

tion from Grant, had continued in friendly personal 
relations with Fish. Within a fortnight he had dined 
at Fish's home. When he read this passage, which he 
not unreasonably applied to himself, his wrath was 
hot. He felt that he had been betrayed by a pre- 
tended friend. From that time he had only formal 
relations with Fish. It was on January 15, only a 
week later, that Fish had to seek the interview with 
regard to the mission of Sir John Rose through the 
mediation of a common friend. Thereafter Sumner 
was ignored by the Administration in handling ques- 
tions of diplomacy. Grant had set his heart on being 
rid of him. 

A new Congress came into being on the 4th of 
March. When the Senate entered on the task of 
organizing its committees, the supporters of the 
Administration served notice that Sumner should be 
deposed from his position at the head of the Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations. The Massachusetts 
Senator had few real friends among his associates. 
His manner for years had been overbearing. Adams 
says that, while not exacting deference, "habitual def- 
erence was essential to his good-will." Those who, 
had L he been of different temper, might have sus- 
tained him, now left him to his fate. Thenceforward, 
he pursued Grant without mercy. His vehement de- 
nunciation inspired others to unsparing criticism, 



334 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and who can say how far the impressions of writers 
of history may have been due to him? Yet Grant 
said to Lowell years later at Madrid: "Sumner is 
the only man I was ever anything but my real self to; 
the only man I ever tried to conciliate by artificial 
means." A curious comment. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

THE CUBAN PROBLEM — SOUND FINANCE — 
"BLACK FRIDAY" 

Over half of Grant's inaugural was devoted to a dis- 
cussion of the nation's financial credit. Four other 
topics were treated. He pledged himself to enforce 
all laws for the security of "person, property, and 
free religion, and political opinion in every part of 
our common country without regard to local preju- 
dice," an unmistakable warning to the lawless ele- 
ment in the South. He declared that he would favor 
any course toward the Indians which would tend to 
their civilization and ultimate citizenship, the first of 
our Presidents to take such advanced position. He 
expressed a desire for the ratification of the Fifteenth 
Amendment to the Constitution, giving to the negro 
the right of suffrage, a wish fulfilled in the first year of 
his Administration. 

Grant in his inaugural enunciated his foreign 
policy in a few robust and pregnant sentences, the 
sturdy tone of which carried throughout his entire 
Administration. "I would deal with nations as 
equitable law requires individuals to deal with each 
other, and I would protect the law-abiding citizen, 
whether of native or foreign birth, wherever his 



336 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

rights are jeopardized, or the flag of our country 
floats. I would respect the rights of all nations, de- 
manding equal respect for our own. If others de- 
part from this rule in their dealings with us, we may 
be compelled to follow their precedent." 

The spirit of this declaration pervaded and gal- 
vanized our treatment of Great Britain and Canada 
in the Alabama claims and the fisheries and boundary 
disputes; of Spain in her relations with Cuba and in 
the Virginius affair; of Mexico and the South and 
Central American Republics in the maintenance of 
the Monroe Doctrine. 

We have seen how delicately the British and San 
Domingan questions were interlaced. The Cuban 
problem was a third thread in the skein. 

While Fish, with the aid of Rose, was trying to 
bring about a renewal of negotiations with Great 
Britain, Grant had turned his attention to the West 
Indies where Cuba and San Domingo filled for the 
moment the field of vision. Spectacularly the rapid 
developments in the Antilles counted for more than 
the deft and cautious diplomatic approaches between 
our State Department and the British Foreign 
Office, but Fish retained throughout a sense of inter- 
national proportion. He did not personally approve 
Grant's course in San Domingo and felt it necessary 
to moderate his chief's desire to meddle in the Cuban 



THE CUBAN PROBLEM 337 

insurrection, but so long as he had a clear path in 
what he deemed the greater problem, he was content 
in general to let Grant have his way without the risk 
of strained relations through offering unasked ad- 
vice. There was much interest throughout the North, 
especially in New York financial circles, in the Cuban 
revolutionists, who had appealed to our Government 
for aid and had enlisted in their cause the sympa- 
thetic Rawlins, now Secretary of War. 

Grant was strongly inclined to Rawlins's view, and 
as early as June 9, 1869, he asked Sumner about issu- 
ing a proclamation according belligerent rights to 
the insurgents, thus doing unto Spain as Spain had 
done to us at the beginning of the Civil War. Sum- 
ner advised against it, but Grant stuck to his idea, 
and having ordered a proclamation to be drawn up, 
he signed it on August 19 in the cabin of one of the 
Fall River boats and sent it to Washington by the 
hand of Bancroft Davis, the Assistant Secretary of 
State, with instructions to Fish to issue the procla- 
mation after signing it and affixing the official seal. 
Fish, gingerly feeling his way toward reopening ne- 
gotiations with Great Britain, was keenly alive to 
the difficulty involved in England's recognition of 
Confederate belligerency, too great emphasis upon 
the enormity of which by Sumner threatened to 
make his essay at negotiations abortive. 



338 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

In his instructions to Motley he had sought to 
minimize the bearing upon our claims of the Queen's 
proclamation of May, 1861, but the proclamation 
still remained an ugly obstacle in his way, and he was 
conscious of the inconsistency of even a perfunc- 
tory assertion of our grievance while we ourselves 
might be upon the point of recognizing belligerent 
rights in a band of Cuban guerrillas who, as he after- 
wards wrote, " have no army, ... no courts, do not 
occupy a single town or hamlet, to say nothing of a 
seaport." To his mind, "Great Britain or France 
might just as well have recognized belligerency for 
the Black Hawk War," and trusting to the efficacy 
of delay, he deposited the proclamation in a safe 
place after signing it, and left it there awaiting fur- 
ther instructions which never came. 

Rawlins died September 6; "Black Friday " came; 
Grant's mind was fully occupied with pressing ques- 
tions; and in the multiplicity of other things Fish had 
his way. In his annual message of December 6, 1869, 
the President contented himself with disclaiming any 
disposition on the part of the United States " to in- 
terfere with the existing relations of Spain with her 
colonial possessions on this continent." But public 
feeling was strong for recognition of belligerency, and 
when Congress met there was a growing pressure for 
the passage of resolutions to that end. Fish was the 



THE CUBAN PROBLEM 339 

restraining influence at this time. Had it not been 
for him Grant would have doubtless aided those who 
called for recognition. Fish advised John Sherman, 
who had introduced the resolution in the Senate, "to 
prepare bills for the increase of the public debt, and 
to meet the increased appropriation which will be 
necessary for the army, navy, etc." As the time for 
a vote in the House approached, he impressed on 
Grant the necessity of sending in a message empha- 
sizing the importance of refraining from recognition, 
and wrote a special message, which was sent to Con- 
gress on June 17, treating the whole subject compre- 
hensively. Fish says in his diary that the President 
"was induced with great hesitation and with much 
reluctance to sign it, and after it was sent in he told 
me that he feared he had made a mistake. ... It 
evoked a fierce debate, and much denunciation, but 
it evoked also much good sense in the speeches of 
those who sustained it ; an expression of good sound 
international law, and of honesty of purpose, and it 
brought the gravity of the case to the consideration 
of Congress; and the Administration, after the sever- 
est debate on a question of foreign policy which has 
occurred for years, was triumphantly sustained." 

Of impressive immediate effect was the clear dec- 
laration with regard to upholding the public credit. 
"A great debt has been contracted by us in securing 



340 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to us and our posterity the Union," said Grant. 
"The payment of this principal and interest, as well 
as the return to a specie basis as soon as it can be 
accomplished without material detriment to the 
debtor class or to the country at large, must be 
provided for. To protect the national honor every 
dollar of government indebtedness should be paid 
in gold, unless otherwise expressly stipulated in the 
contract. Let it be understood that no repudiator of 
one farthing of our public debt will be trusted in 
public place and it will go far toward strengthening a 
credit which ought to be the best in the world, and 
will ultimately enable us to replace the debt with 
bonds bearing less interest than we now pay. To this 
should be added a faithful collection of the revenue, a 
strict accountability to the treasury for every dollar 
collected, and the greatest practical retrenchment in 
expenditure in every department of government." 

It required some courage for the President and the 
Republican Party to take this attitude, for there was 
a strong sentiment in the country in favor of the pay- 
ment of five-twenty bonds in greenbacks and a lar^o 
issue of greenbacks for that purpose. A considerable 
party had come into being in support of this proposal, » 
and the feeling had been accentuated by the rapid 
contraction of United States notes following the Civil 
War, $140,000,000 out of $737,000,000 having been 



SOUND FINANCE 341 

withdrawn in the two years preceding 1868. Johnson, 
although he had at his elbow in Secretary McCulloch 
one of the soundest of financial ministers, had extra- 
ordinary ideas personally about the repudiation of 
interest on government bonds, which found expression 
in his last annual message; and the fact that, following 
the London panic of May, 1866, business had been in 
a bad way, with a decrease in the value of property 
and an increase in the face value of debts, was popu- 
larly attributed to the contraction of the currency. 
Yet there was no hesitancy on the part of the new 
Administration. 

The Republicans in the platform upon which Grant 
was elected had denounced all forms of repudiation 
as a national crime and declared that the national 
honor required the payment of the public indebted- 
ness "in the uttermost good faith to all creditors at 
home and abroad not only according to the letter but 
the spirit of the laws"; and the very first act of the 
Congress which came into existence on March 4, 
1869, was a law "to strengthen the public credit," 
which, after passing both House and Senate over- 
whelmingly, was signed by Grant on March 18. The 
law solemnly pledged the faith of the United States to 
the payment, in gold or its equivalent, of the United 
States notes and all the United States bonds except 
in those cases where the law authorizing their issue 



34* ULYSSES S. GRANT 

provided expressly for their payment in "other cur- 
rency than gold and silver." By the words of the law 
the United States also solemnly pledged its faith "to 
make provision at the earliest practicable period for 
the redemption of the United States notes in coin." 

The episode which has come down in history as 
the "Gold Conspiracy," with "Black Friday" as its 
demoralizing climax, throws light not only upon 
Grant's ingenuousness, but also on the fashions of 
the hour. At the time of Grant's accession to the 
Presidency the two spectacular figures in New York 
financial circles were Jay Gould and James Fisk, 
Jr., — "Jim" Fisk as he was popularly known. 
Gould was the shrewdest, most subtle and ruthless 
trader and manipulator in the Street — a railroad 
wrecker after the manner of his day, with an extra- 
ordinary genius for getting money; slight in figure, 
reticent, keen of face, of a Semitic type. Fisk, his 
partner in many deals, was a speculator of another 
sort, big, coarse, florid in complexion, dress, and 
speech, a daring gambler for heavy stakes, a high 
liver, unscrupulous in his financial operations, im- 
moral in his daily and nightly life. 

These two, so strikingly contrasted in everything 
except their passion for speculation and financial 
power, had combined their diverse talents in 1868 to 
gain control of the Erie Railroad. They played with 



BLACK FRIDAY 343 

power as though it were a toy. They flaunted their 
control by putting on the board of directors "Boss" 
Tweed and Peter B. Sweeney, the chieftains of Tam- 
many Hall. 

Gould and Fisk also owned steamers, palatial for 
that day, plying between New York and Fall River, 
a fleet of which Fisk liked to be called Admiral, and 
in command of which he would float up Long Island 
Sound with bands playing and flags flying. Gould 
had a project to advance the price of gold till wheat 
should reach a price which would induce the farmers 
of the West to seek the English market with their 
breadstuff's, thus causing a movement of crops to 
the seaboard, which meant plenty of freight for the 
Erie road. 

In the early summer of 1869 gold was heavy at 
$1.34. There had been little change for months. To 
manipulate the market Gould needed a free hand; 
but he had to reckon with the Treasury gold re- 
serve, and Secretary Boutwell had his own ideas 
about the course gold ought to take. He had been 
selling gold ever since he took office, setting free 
$2,500,000 each month, thus bringing greenbacks 
nearer the gold level. 

Gould's problem was to stop the sales of gold, 
and to this end he laid the wires to get in touch with 
Boutwell's superior. Abel Rathbone Corbin, aged 



344 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

sixty-seven, retired speculator, lobby agent, editor, 
and lawyer, recently married to Grant's sister, was 
living in New York. Gould used him to secure an 
introduction. On June 15, 18G9, Grant visited New 
York on his way to the Peace Jubilee at Boston. He 
stayed at Corbin's house; Gould met him there. 

Gould and Fisk invited Grant to continue his 
journey to Boston as their guest on one of the Fall 
River boats, and on the run up the Sound they led 
the conversation at dinner around to the subject of 
finance. "Some one," Gould testified in the inves- 
tigation which followed the cataclysm, "asked the 
President what his view was," and to the consterna- 
tion of the conspirators Grant replied bluntly that 
" there was a certain amount of fictitiousness about 
the prosperity of the country and that the bubble 
might as well be tapped in one way as another." 

There was a vacancy in the position of Assistant 
Treasurer of the United States at New York, the 
custodian of the greatest deposit of gold in the coun- 
try. The place was filled on July 1 by the appoint- 
ment of General Daniel Butterfield, upon whose 
cooperation Gould felt he could rely. Gould did 
nothing to influence the market till the time for the 
movement of the crops approached. But in the last 
ten days of August, through a pool which he formed 
with two other large speculators, he bought from ten 



BLACK FRIDAY 345 

to fifteen millions of gold without, however, materi- 
ally increasing the premium. 

On September 2, Grant, quite oblivious to what 
was going on, passed through New York on his 
way to Saratoga, and stayed a few hours at Cor- 
bin's house, seeing no one else while there. 1 In the 
course of conversation Grant became convinced of 
the soundness of Gould's theory about marketing 
the crops, as expounded by Corbin. He stopped in 
the middle of a conversation in which he had ex- 
pressed his views and wrote a letter to Secretary 
Bout well. Before he had left the house the pur- 
port of this letter undoubtedly was communicated 
to Gould, who called privately upon Corbin with- 
out Grant's knowledge. 

Before a Congressional investigating committee, 
Boutwell subsequently testified: "I think on the 
evening of the 4th of September I received a letter 
from the President dated at New York, as I recollect 
it. . . . In that letter he expressed an opinion that 
it was undesirable to force down the price of gold. 
He spoke of the importance to the West of being able 
to move their crops. . . . Upon the receipt of the 
President's letter on the evening of the 4th of Sep- 
tember, I telegraphed to Judge Richardson (Assist- 
ant Secretary of the Treasury at Washington) this 
1 Henry Adams, The Gold Conspiracy. 



346 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

dispatch: 'Send no order to Butterfield as to sales 
of gold until you hear from me.'" 

Thus Gould had information that the policy of the 
Administration with regard to the sale of gold was to 
be reversed fully a day before the Secretary of the 
Treasury himself. He lost no time in taking ad- 
vantage of his opportunity. Before leaving Corbin's 
house, he had agreed to carry a million and a half of 
gold as Corbin testified later "for the sake of a lady, 
my wife." That same afternoon his brokers began 
buying gold in large quantities. By the time Bout- 
well received his letter on September 4, 1869, the pre- 
mium had risen from 32 to 37. Then the bears began 
to sell short. One of Gould's associates in the pool de- 
serted him. The market broke. Corbin made Gould 
pay him twenty-five thousand dollars on account. 
Gold settled down to 35 and lingered there for a week. 
Then Fisk, at Gould's suggestion, went in to buy. 

Gould placed a million and a half to Butterfield's 
account and half a million to the credit of General 
Horace Porter, the President's private secretary, 
sending word to them through Corbin. Porter re- 
pudiated the purchase promptly. Butterfield took 
no notice of the transaction. After the storm broke, 
though he denied that he was ever notified of the 
transaction, so great was the scandal that he was 
forced to resign. 



BLACK FRIDAY 347 

From the 10th to the 13th of September, Grant 
was again in New York and Gould saw him at Cor- 
bin's house, though the President by that time had 
become suspicious of the motives of the financier; for 
according to Corbin he told the servant this should 
be the last time Gould should be admitted. "Gould 
was always trying to get something out of him." It is 
a pity he did not earlier shut the door in Gould's face. 

Plainly he had given no definite assurance regard- 
ing his policy, for when he left on the 13th for a few 
days' stay in the little town of Washington among 
the mountains of western Pennsylvania, the con- 
spirators in their anxiety, through the complaisant 
Corbin, chased him up. They had bought over fifty 
millions and had forced the market up to 40 in spite 
of the increased activity of the bears. They did not 
dare let go for fear of a collapse. It was vital to them 
that the President should not direct the Secretary 
of the Treasury to resume the sale of gold. Corbin 
wrote a letter advising him to maintain his present 
attitude regarding the sale of gold, which Fisk sent 
speedily by a special messenger to reach him before 
his return to the White House. In order to insure 
its immediate delivery the messenger carried also a 
letter of introduction to Horace Porter. It was not 
till after the messenger had gone that Grant discov- 
ered the elaborate precautions to insure the prompt 



348 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

delivery of an apparently unimportant communica- 
tion. His suspicions were roused. At his request Mrs. 
Grant wrote that night to Mrs. Corbin that the Presi- 
dent was distressed to hear that Corbin was speculat- 
ing in Wall Street and hoped he would "instantly 
disconnect himself with anything of that sort." 

Corbin wrote at once to Grant that he had not a 
dollar interest in gold — a letter which with the other 
he promptly showed to Gould who saw him daily, 
suggesting in order to make good the assurance to his 
brother-in-law that Gould should give him one hun- 
dred thousand dollars and take his gold off his hands. 
Gould, who had all the gold he could stagger under 
just then, declined the proposal, but offered him one 
hundred thousand dollars to stay in and not throw 
his million and a half on the market. Corbin refused, 
and then, realizing that an order to sell might come 
from the Treasury at any moment, Gould hurried 
down to Wall Street. 

Fisk, still supposing that Grant was following the 
advice in Corbin's letter, was buying wildly. The 
market bounded to 162. The bears were dazed and 
at the mercy of the new Napoleon of the Street, when 
Gould without warning began to sell — the bubble 
burst. The Street was in a state of excitement with- 
out a precedent in all its checkered history. Within 
a few minutes gold had fallen to 135. The Treasury 






BLACK FRIDAY 349 

wired its order to sell, which Gould had been expect- 
ing, but which Fisk had not surmised. Gould had got 
rid of his gold and his brokers' firm were able to meet 
their contracts; but not so with Fisk. He repudiated 
all but one. Their victims turned on them in wrath. 
They escaped by back entrances to their uptown 
office, while armed guards beat back the ruined trad- 
ers storming at their downtown doors. There have 
been no scenes to equal this in Wall Street before 
or since. It was Friday, September 24, 1869, "Black 
Friday." 

The punishment of the conspirators did not fit the 
crime. Fisk and Gould continued in control of Erie, a 
little more discredited. Butterfield was permitted to 
resign. In addition to letting Gould carry his gold for 
him he had borrowed money from him and had spec- 
ulated in government bonds. Brother-in-law Corbin, 
his dreams of fortune shattered, retired to Washing- 
ton, where he was not made uproariously welcome in 
the President's house, though he was not cast adrift. 
'He had accomplished nothing through his plunge in 
high finance, except to set malicious tongues wagging. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

THE LEGAL TENDER DECISION 

When Congress met in December, 1869, with the 
financial disturbances still unsettled, the President 
in his first annual message urged upon its attention 
the evil of an unredeemable currency, repeating the 
sentiments expressed in his inaugural. "It is the 
duty, and one of the highest duties of Government," 
he said, "to secure to the citizen a medium of fixed, 
unvarying value. This implies a return to a specie 
basis and no substitute for it can be devised. It 
should be commenced now and reached at the earli- 
est practicable moment consistent with a fair regard 
to the interests of the debtor class." He earnestly 
recommended such legislation as would insure a grad- 
ual return to specie payments and put an immediate 
stop to fluctuations in the paper value of the measure 
of all values (gold) which "makes the man of busi- 
ness an involuntary gambler, for in all sales where 
future payment is to be made both parties speculate 
as to what will be the value of the currency to be paid 
and received." 

At the time the national debt was $2,453,000,000. 
It had been decreased since March 1 by $71,903,000. 



THE LEGAL TENDER DECISION 351 

There had been set aside for the sinking fund 
$20,000,000 of bonds, to comply with the law of 
1862, that one per cent of the entire debt should be 
set apart annually for this purpose. Boutwell, who, 
though endowed with little financial imagination, 
had economic common sense and thrift, concerned 
himself first of all throughout his administration of 
the Treasury in the reduction of the national debt, a 
policy which helped our credit at home and abroad, 
resulting in a total reduction during Grant's two 
Administrations of nearly a billion dollars. 

Boutwell bought the five-twenty bonds carrying 
six per cent interest and sold four and one-half per 
cent bonds in a refunding plan elaborated by himself. 
He strove for the resumption of specie payments, and 
in his first report asked for authority to retire at his 
discretion two millions of greenbacks every month; 
but Congress failed to give him this power to contract 
the currency, a policy which had not been popular 
since McCulloch in Johnson's Administration had 
retired forty-four million dollars of greenbacks before 
further contraction was suspended by Congress in 
February, 1868. The contraction from McCulloch 's 
retirement of greenbacks and from the withdrawal 
and funding of the compound interest legal tender 
notes had undoubtedly been too drastic treatment at 
a time when the country was none too prosperous. 



352 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Morton, of Indiana, called it the "Sangrado policy 
of bleeding the country nearly to death to cure it of 
a disease which demands tonics and building up." 

Hardly had Grant's message of December, 1869, 
gone to the country before the whole currency ques- 
tion was brought vividly to the notice of the people, 
through the decision of the United States Supreme 
Court in the case of Hepburn vs. Griswold, that the 
Legal Tender Act, under which the greenbacks were 
authorized at the beginning of the war, was uncon- 
stitutional. The opinion of the court was handed 
down on February 7, 1870, by Chief Justice Chase, 
under whose administration as Secretary of the 
Treasury the law had been enacted. He now argued 
that the act impaired the obligation of contracts and 
was inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution; 
that it deprived persons of property without due 
process of law, by forcing creditors to accept dollars 
of less value than those which were lent or which by 
the terms of the contract they had a right to expect in 
payment of claims. "We are obliged to conclude," 
said Chase as Chief Justice, "that an act [fathered by 
Chase as Secretary of the Treasury] making mere 
promises to pay dollars as legal tender in payment of 
debts previously contracted, is not a means appropri- 
ate, plainly adapted, really calculated, to carry into 
effect any express power vested in Congress; that 



THE LEGAL TENDER DECISION 353 

such an act is inconsistent with the spirit of the Con- 
stitution; and that it is prohibited by the Constitu- 
tion." 

Justice Miller, one of the ablest jurists who ever 
sat on the Supreme Bench, delivered the opinion of 
the minority of the court. After quoting Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall, he said: " With the credit of the Gov- 
ernment nearly exhausted and the resources of tax- 
ation inadequate to pay even the interest on the 
public debt, Congress was called on to devise some 
new means of borrowing money on the credit of the 
nation ; for the result of the war was conceded by all 
thoughtful men to depend on the capacity of the Gov- 
ernment to raise money in amounts previously un- 
known. . . . The coin in the country . . . would not 
have made a circulation sufficient to answer army 
purchases. ... A general collapse of credit, of pay- 
ment, and of business seemed inevitable, in which 
faith in the ability of the Government would have 
been destroyed, the rebellion would have triumphed, 
the States would have been left divided, and the 
people impoverished. The National Government 
would have perished, and with it the Constitution 
which we are now called upon to construe with such 
oice and critical accuracy. ..." 

The court was divided in its decision as handed 
down, four to three: Nelson, Clifford, and Field 



354 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

siding with Chase, while Swayne and Davis agreec 
with Miller. Grier, who had sat with the court whei 
it first came to its decision on November 27, 18G9 
and had then pronounced in favor of the 'constitu- 
tionality of the act, had resigned before the announce- 
ment of the decision on February 7, by unanimous 
request of the other justices, his senile incompetency 
having disclosed itself in the mean time through his 
statement in another case of an opinion inconsistent 
with his position on the Legal Tender case, and his 
prompt reversal of his Legal Tender opinion whei 
the inconsistency was called to his attention. There 
were two vacancies on the bench on the day the de- 
cision was handed down. Wayne had died and Griei 
had resigned. E. R. Hoar, who had been nominatec 
for one of the places, had been rejected by the Senat 
four days earlier. Edwin 1VL Stanton, who had been 
nominated for the other vacancy and promptly con- 
firmed on December 20, had died four days after 
confirmation. 

It happened that on the very day the decision wa 
handed down Grant sent to the Senate the name 
of William Strong, of Pennsylvania, and Joseph P 
Bradley, of New Jersey. Subsequently, two othe 
cases known as the Legal Tender cases were broughl 
before the court. A decision affirming the consti-j 
tutionality of the acts and overruling the formei 






THE LEGAL TENDER DECISION 355 

decision was reached and announced on May 1, 
1871. The opinion of the court, as read by Justice 
Strong at the following term, on January 15, 1872, 
declared that "we hold the acts of Congress con- 
stitutional as applied to contracts made either before 
or after their passage. In so holding we overrule so 
much of what was decided in Hepburn vs. Griswold 
as ruled the acts unwarranted by the Constitution so 
far as they apply to contracts made before their 
enactment." 

The coincidence of the appointment of these two 
justices, and the speedy reversal of the attitude of the 
court on the constitutionality of the Legal Tender 
Acts, led not unnaturally to the conclusion in many 
minds, that Strong and Bradley had been named for 
this specific purpose, and Chief Justice Chase, by in- 
direction, gave color to the charge that the court had 
been packed in order to reverse the earlier decision 
in which he had participated. For many years this 
suspicion lurked in the public consciousness, and 
the motives of Grant and Attorney-General Hoar, 
on whose recommendation the appointments were 
made, have been frequently called in question. 

There is no ground whatever for the charge. Sena- 
tor George F. Hoar, loyally defending the memory 
of his brother, replied to it conclusively, with great 
detail of circumstance, in a letter which appeared 



356 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

in the "Boston Herald" in 1896 and which after- 
wards was printed as a pamphlet, but it did not 
require this marshaling of proof to clear the records 
of the President and his Attorney-General. The va- 
cancies were there; they had to be filled at that time; 
and there was every reason why a Republican Presi- 
dent should fill them with Republicans, as four of th^ 
seven justices had Democratic affiliations, Chase 
having been a candidate for the Democratic nomina- 
tion for President less than two years before. It 
would have been hard to find a Republican judge or 
lawyer of prominence who was less likely than Strong 
and Bradley to favor the constitutionality of the Le- 
gal Tender Acts, and there is not the slightest evi- 
dence that, when Strong and Bradley were decided 
upon by the President and the Attorney-General 
and approved by the Cabinet, any one of them had an 
inkling of what the decision of the court was to be. 
Grant did not "pack the court." 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

BITTER PROBLEMS — THE SOUTH — THE NEGRO — 
ENFORCEMENT ACTS 

It was Grant's misfortune to inherit the problem of 
the negro and the South in its most sordid and repul- 
sive phase. The tragical blunders of Reconstruction, 
which under the pressure of political necessity he had 
half-heartedly consented to in their incipiency in 
Johnson's Administration, bloomed noxiously in his 
own. He had been sincerely the friend of the South at 
the close of the Civil War, and he was genuinely in 
favor of restoring promptly to the conquered Con- 
federates the full rights of citizenship. He was 
brought by force of circumstances to accept the full 
measure of negro suffrage as an unwelcome reprisal 
for Johnson's stubbornness; but he did not regard it 
as inconsistent with his honest aspirations for a fully 
reunited country. "Let us have peace" as he penned 
it was not an empty phrase; yet it fell to him as 
President to secure what peace was feasible only 
through apprehension of the sword, to quell internal 
violence by show of force. Threats of turbulence and 
bloodshed in the South marked the entire period of 
Grant's occupancy of the White House; and with 



358 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

sanction of Congress he was driven more than 
once to measures not contemplated by the Consti- 
tution. 

The black record of carpet-bag and scalawag po- 
litical control of Southern States, through misuse of 
the negro vote, is an ugly picture to look back on. 
The work of the Ku-Klux Klans and the White 
Leagues was equally deplorable, unworthy of a proud- 
spirited race and inexcusable even in the distressing 
circumstances which inspired them. The former 
slaves who reveled ostentatiously in unsought oppor- 
tunities were not the best representatives of their 
race, but they were victims in a measure of Northern 
zealots, who fatuously dreamed that the poor, un- 
lettered, childlike creatures could be at once regen- 
erated by the baptism of the franchise. 

Neither were the Ku-Klux Klans and White 
League ruffians typical of the South. Those who at 
this day try to paint them so render poor service to a 
high-spirited, nobly nurtured people. The outrages, 
riots, and murders which figured so conspicuously in 
Grant's Administration were as a rule the work of the 
lower class of whites, and in justice to the South 
should be so credited, exactly as the political misrule 
of the carpet-baggers should not be attributed to 
those thrifty Northern settlers whose purpose in 
leaving their homes was to help restore a war- 



BITTER PROBLEMS 359 

shattered territory and to participate in its renewed 
industrial prosperity. 

The New Orleans riot of July, 1866, which Sheri- 
dan characterized as "an absolute massacre," was 
the first of the social disturbances which later became 
too prevalent. It was natural that they should begin 
in Louisiana; for this was the first of the Southern 
States to be "reconstructed," and the great negro 
population thus invited to participate in its govern- 
ment were largely plantation hands, the most igno- 
rant and vicious of their race, many of whom had 
been "sold down the river" by their former masters 
for punishment as desperate characters. Northern 
adventurers were speedily on the ground at New 
Orleans, organizing the freedmen for political control. 
Corruption and legislative orgies on the one hand and 
violence on the other became the order of the day. 
A Republican majority of 26,000 in the spring elec- 
tions of 1868 was transformed in November into a 
majority of 46,000 for Seymour and Blair. 

From 1868 to 1872 misgovernment on the part of 
carpet-baggers and negroes, tempered by violence 
and intimidation on the part of the white minor- 
ity, prevailed, not only in Louisiana, but in other 
States containing a large excess of negro population, 
although Virginia, thanks to the fact that Schofield 
had it long under military rule, escaped the invasion 



300 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of carpet-baggers and was thus in Schofield's words 
"saved from the vile government and spoliation 
which cursed the other Southern States." Bribery, 
thievery, and extravagance were commonplaces in 
the legislatures and among state officials. There 
was corruption in the courts; property values fell; 
taxes were in arrears; the state debts soared to pre- 
posterous figures; industry was paralyzed. 

In Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and Vir- 
ginia conservative forces gradually gained ascend- 
ancy during the early years of Grant's Administra- 
tion; but this was not true of other States. In 1873, 
three fourths of the South Carolina Legislature were 
negroes, mulattoes, and octoroons, the most present- 
able of whom a few years earlier were gentlemen's 
servants, others of whom had been raising corn and 
cotton under the whip of the overseer. The State 
House had been lavishly refurnished; clocks and 
mirrors costing $600; chairs costing $60; cuspidors 
costing $14, had replaced the simple fittings of ante- 
bellum days. A free restaurant and bar was kept 
open day and night for the convenience of members 
of the Legislature and their friends. The public print- 
ing bills during the eight years of negro supremacy 
exceeded by $717,589 the total cost of printing dur- 
ing the seventy-eight years preceding. The total 
taxes paid by all the members of one Legislature 






BITTER PROBLEMS 361 

were reported to be only $634; and 67 of the 98 negro 
members paid no tax at all. 

Negroes and carpet-baggers were sent to Congress. 
Some of them were men of character; others not. 
Men like Blanche K. Bruce, H. R. Revels, John R. 
Lynch, Robert Elliott, negroes all, would do credit 
to any race. 

There is testimony also to violence by negroes in 
reconstructed States, tales of burning barns,* cotton 
gins, and dwellings; of rape committed upon white 
women; of outrages such as bestial beings exulting 
in unaccustomed license might be guilty of. There is 
no evidence that these things were as prevalent as 
has been represented; but they were sufficient in con- 
nection with the political orgies at the state capitols 
to rouse the whites to action. Hence the increased 
activity of the Ku-Klux Klans, the White Leagues, 
the terrifying night raids, the midnight whippings, 
the lynchings, and innumerable unspeakable offenses, 
some of them committed for private vengeance or as 
a method of political proscription. The record is one 
of infamy; and the late endeavor of a few Southern 
novelists, playwrights, and motion-picture producers 
to throw about it the halo of righteous retribution and 
romance will make it nothing else. 1 

1 In spite of the notoriety attaching to the operations of the 
Ku-Klux Klans, it should be remembered that their operations 



362 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Thus Grant was called upon to meet conditions in 
the South for which there was no parallel or prece- 
dent and for the existence of which he was in no way 

were by no means universal in the South. They were widely 
separated and their virulence was confined to the black counties 
of the afflicted States. The various secret organizations seem to 
have had little more than incidental relationship among them- 
selves. The most authentic presentation of facts appears in the 
majority and minority reports of a joint committee created by 
resolution of Congress, April 7, 1871, consisting of seven Senators 
and fourteen Representatives — thirteen Republicans and eight 
Democrats — who were authorized " to inquire into the condition 
of affairs in the late insurrectionary States." The majority point 
out that the Ku-Klux Klan was in actual operation both in Ten- 
nessee and the adjoining States some time before there were any 
negro legislatures or any negro voters. 

The report admits the sorry character of the governments im- 
posed upon the reconstructed States. "The refusal of their former 
masters to participate in political reconstruction necessarily left 
the negroes to be influenced by others. Many of them were elected 
to office, and entered it with honest intentions to do their duty, 
but were unfitted for its discharge. Through their instrumental- 
ity, many unworthy white men, having obtained their confidence, 
also procured public positions." 

In South Carolina, especially, corruption was flagrant. The 
testimony taken by the committee discloses the demoralization 
which prevailed among Radicals and Democrats, — black and 
white alike. 

Dr. R. M. Smith, a Democratic member of the Legislature, 
when .asked if he would impose a penalty upon a man who bribes 
a public official, replied: "No, sir; because when it is understood 
that a man is for sale like a sheep, or anything else, any man has 
a right to buy him." 

General M. C. Butler, later a United States Senator, a Confed- 
erate who wore the United States uniform as a volunteer major- 
general in the war with Spain, hail this to say concerning land 
commission frauds, bv which native South Carolinians sold their 



BITTER PROBLEMS 363 

to blame — conditions which would never have pre- 
vailed had the South been left a little longer under 
military control before being plunged into the ex- 
perimental bath of Reconstruction. The steps he took 
to bring about a semblance of order were drastic and 
to some obnoxious; but at the moment they seemed 
obvious and necessary — and there was no lack of 
definiteness in his method of approach. 

Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi having ratified 
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, their 
Senators and Representatives were admitted to Con- 
gress under a resolution containing conditions cal- 
culated to prevent these States from slipping from 
Republican control. Hiram R. Revels, a quadroon, 
had the distinction of being the first colored man to 
hold a seat in the United States Senate, succeed- 
ing to the place last occupied by Jefferson Davis. 
All the Confederate States had now gone through 
the process of Reconstruction; but Georgia, which 
had been represented in the House of Representa- 
tives since 1868 under Johnson's Reconstruction, was 
forced to go through the process again. After she 

land at five dollars an acre to the State and allowed the commis- 
sion to insert ten dollars an acre as the consideration in the deed: 
" It was human nature almost. I do not think a strictly honest man 
would do it. If I had ten thousand acres of land to sell and a 
Senator would come to me and say, 'I will buy that if you will 
give me five hundred dollars,' I would buy him up as I would buy 
a mule." 



364 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

had once been admitted to the Union the conserva- 
tives in the Legislature had committed the offense 
of expelling all the negro members and seating in 
their place white men ineligible under the Fourteenth 
Amendment. Her Senators-elect had never been per- 
mitted to take their seats and her Representatives 
were now barred from the House on the organiza- 
tion of the Forty-first Congress in March, 1869. 

There were comparatively few carpet-baggers in 
Georgia, but Bullock, the radical Governor, a man of 
force and not oppressed by scruples, had proved him- 
self obnoxious. The finances of the State were in- 
volved in obscurity and confusion. The Western and 
Atlantic Railroad, which for years had been the pride 
of the State, was sacrificed to politics and loot. The 
superintendent of the road testified that he took 
charge "to manage its public and political policy." 
The auditor saved thirty thousand dollars a year on 
a three thousand dollar salary, as he said, "by prac- 
ticing strict economy." Grant in his annual message, 
December 6, 1869, recommended the reorganization 
of the Legislature. A law was promptly enacted con- 
taining strict stipulations regarding membership in 
the Legislature, providing that before her Senators 
and Representatives should be admitted to Congress, 
Georgia must ratify the Fifteenth Amendment, and 
that upon the application of the Governor the Presi- 



BITTER PROBLEMS 365 

dent should employ what military force was necessary 
to enforce the act. Terry was assigned to command, 
the Legislature was summoned, and under his orders 
twenty-four Democrats were ousted. Their places 
were filled by Republicans, and the negroes who had 
been expelled were readmitted. Thus reconstructed, 
the Legislature ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 
Amendments and elected two Senators. 

In Congress there was a desperate attempt not only 
to prescribe for Georgia the "fundamental condi- 
tions" imposed on Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi, 
but to prolong for two years the life of the reorgan- 
ized radical Bullock Legislature. Morton, Sumner, 
Wilson, and other radical leaders in the Senate carried 
on there a long and bitter but unsuccessful fight. 
The Bullock scheme for prolongation was beaten and 
the right of Georgia to have an election in 1870 as 
stipulated in its constitution was confirmed. Thus 
for the first time since the early days of Reconstruc- 
tion the conservative element in the Republican 
Party showed itself in the ascendancy. 

Beaten at Washington, Bullock got his hand-picked 
Georgia Senate to pass a resolution that the Legisla- 
ture should not meet until January, 1872, that no 
election for members should be held until Novem- 
ber, 1872, and that,until the election, all state officers 
should hold their place. There was a fierce fight in 



366 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the House over the resolution which was finally 
defeated through the influence of Grant. Bullock 
then induced the Legislature to pass a law, setting 
December 22 as the beginning of an election which 
was to continue three days, the plan apparently be- 
ing to give the negroes an opportunity to "repeat" 
from precinct to precinct. No votes were to be 
challenged; none refused. The poll tax levied for 
the past three years was declared illegal, so that no 
one need be disfranchised for non-payment of taxes. 

The white Democrats, intent on clearing the 
negroes and carpet-baggers out of the State Capitol, 
took things. into their own hands. There were no 
"outrages," no intimidation, no turbulence, but there 
was plenty of "persuasion." The negroes were un- 
usually flush with spending-money for a few days 
after the election. Many of them voted the Demo- 
cratic ticket. More of them stayed away from the 
polls. It was a test of the supremacy of intellect and 
cash over the passion of freemen for the ballot. 

The Democrats elected two thirds of the Legisla- 
ture and five out of seven Congressmen — a good 
beginning for a numerical minority. Thereafter 
Georgia had "home rule." A Democratic Governor 
was inaugurated two years later in 1872. The regen- 
erated State has ever since cast its electoral vote for 
the Democratic candidate for President. A Southern 



BITTER PROBLEMS 367 

woman, who late in the winter of 1869 wrote that 
"the negroes were almost in a state of anarchy," 
wrote two years later, "The negroes are behaving 
like angels." Such was the beneficent result of the 
new doctrine of "persuasion." 

North Carolina was an old, substantial Whig 
State, uncursed by negro supremacy; and yet cor- 
ruption ruled. Bribery in the Legislature was open 
and usual. All sorts of questionable enterprises were 
"put across." The debt of the State increased from 
$16,000,000 to $32,000,000. There were Ku-Klux 
outrages, though not so many as in other States. 
Holden, the Governor, declared two counties in a 
state of insurrection, and sent Colonel Kirk with a 
body of mountaineer militia to keep the peace. Kirk 
arrested a hundred citizens, many of good repute, 
and kept them in custody in daily dread of death 
under martial law. 

" Kirk's Raid," as it was known, stirred Washing- 
ton to wrath, and there was hot debate. The judge 
of the United States District Court issued a writ 
of habeas corpus commanding Kirk to bring his 
prisoners before him. Grant sent a regiment to the 
scene and the United States Marshal called upon 
the troops to execute the order of the court. Finally 
Grant turned the whole business over to Attorney- 
General Akerman, who sustained the federal judge; 



3G8 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

whereupon the court discharged the prisoners from 
Kirk's "unlawful custody." While all this was going 
on, an election was held on August 4, which resulted 
in general Republican defeat. The Democrats carried 
the Legislature and elected five out of the seven 
Congressmen. 

Holden, the Governor, made himself especially 
obnoxious by garrisoning Raleigh, the State Capital, 
with negro troops. He was impeached, found guilty, 
and removed from office. 

In the midst of disturbances arising from the 
emancipation of the negro and his imposition upon 
the electorate of the South, the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution became valid through rati- 
fication by the Legislatures of three fourths of the 
States, among them North and South Carolina, 
Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Virginia, Alabama, 
Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia, reconstructed States 
of the Confederacy. The Secretary of State certified 
to this on March 30, 1870. 

So impressed was Grant with the significance of 
the completion of the trilogy of changes in the or- 
ganic law growing out of the Civil War that he made 
it the occasion of a special message to Congress, flam- 
ing with fervid rhetoric to a degree unusual for 
Grant. Although an editorial blue pencil would have 



ENFORCEMENT ACTS 369 

helped the message, the recommendations it con- 
tained were sound: "Institutions like ours, in which 
all power is derived from the people, must depend 
mainly upon their intelligence, patriotism, and in- 
dustry. I call the attention, therefore, of the newly 
enfranchised race to the importance of their striving 
in every honorable manner to make themselves 
worthy of their new privilege. To the race most 
favored heretofore by our laws I would say, with- 
hold no legal privilege of advancement to the new 
citizen. The framers of our Constitution firmly be- 
lieved that a republican government could not en- 
dure without intelligence and education generally 
diffused among the people. ... I would therefore 
call upon Congress to take all the means within 
their constitutional powers to promote and en- 
courage popular education throughout the country 
and upon the people everywhere to see to it that all 
who possess and exercise political rights shall have 
the opportunity to acquire the knowledge which will 
make their share in the Government a blessing and 
not a danger." 

But the first acts of Congress under the second 
section of the Amendment, giving that body power 
"to enforce this article by appropriate legislation," 
did not lie in the direction of popular education. 
On the contrary, they were intended to meet the 



370 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

turbulent conditions in Southern States which hac 
resulted in so many instances in the intimidation oi 
the negro and the suppression of his vote by an in- 
telligent and ruthless minority bent upon restoring 
the political control of their state governments to 
those best qualified to administer them. 

In quick succession Congress passed three "en- 
forcement acts," the first of which was signed by 
Grant on May 31, 1870. "The scope and purpose 
of the bill," said Carl Schurz in its support, "is that 
no State shall enforce a law with regard to elections, 
or the processes preliminary to elections, in which in 
any way, either directly or indirectly, discrimination 
is made against any citizen on account of race, color, 
or previous condition; . . . neither a State nor an 
individual shall deprive any citizen of the Unitec 
States on account of race and color, of the free exer- 
cise of his right to participate in the functions of self- 
government; and the National Government assumes 
the duty to prevent the commission of the crime and 
to correct the consequences when committed." 

Thurman and other Democratic Senators de 
nounced the act as "outrage and oppression" anc 
Edmunds bitingly called attention to the irony of the 
circumstance that the machinery for the enforcement 
of the act should have been borrowed from the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law of 1850. 



ENFORCEMENT ACTS 371 

One section of the act was directed toward the 
suppression of the Ku-Klux Klan; another author- 
ized the President to employ when necessary the 
military force of the United States " to aid in the exe- 
cution of judicial process" under the act, and there 
were special provisions for the enforcement of the 
Fourteenth Amendment. 

Having had its taste of blood Congress went to 
greater lengths. On February 28, 1871, a second 
Enforcement Act was approved by Grant, entitled 
"An Act to enforce the rights of citizens of the 
United States to vote in the several States of this 
Union." It placed the elections for members of Con- 
gress under federal control; provided for the appoint- 
ment of supervisors by judges of the United States 
Courts to insure a fair vote and honest count; em- 
powered United States Marshals to appoint deputies 
to prevent interference with the right of voting, any 
one of whom might summon the posse comitatus of 
his district to aid in the enforcement of the law. 

The act, of course, applied to all the States; in 
fact, it was subsequently brought to bear upon the 
election frauds of Tammany in New York; but its 
immediate object was to protect the negroes in the 
exercise of suffrage in the South, where, by a strange 
perversion of the intention of the Emancipation 
Proclamation and the constitutional amendments, 



372 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the white population already were beginning to 
realize that by counting the negro in the census and 
failing to count his vote they could enjoy a greater 
proportional representation in the House of Repre- 
sentatives even than before the war. 

The third Enforcement Act had the like general 
purpose in view of establishing order in the South. 
The new Congress — the Forty-second — which be- 
gan its sessions on March 4, according to the law 
enacted to curb Johnson's activities, had before it 
the report of a special committee appointed during 
the preceding session to investigate affairs in the 
South. On March 23, Grant called attention to the 
report in a special message in which he said: "A 
condition of affairs now exists in some of the States 
of the Union rendering life and property insecure 
and the carrying of the mails and the collection of 
the revenue dangerous. The proof that such a con- 
dition of affairs exists in some localities is now be- 
fore the Senate. That the power to correct these 
evils is beyond the control of the state authorities I 
do not doubt; that the power of the Executive of 
the United States, acting within the limits of exist- 
ing laws, is sufficient for present emergencies is not 
clear. Therefore I urgently recommend such legisla- 
tion as in the judgment of Congress shall effectu- 
ally secure life, liberty, and property and the en- 



ENFORCEMENT ACTS 373 

forcement of the law in all parts of the United 
States." 

Feeling was intense at the moment, and Congress 
quickly complied with the request of the President, 
by passing the law of April 20, 1871, "to enforce the 
provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment." This 
law conferred upon the President extraordinary 
powers. One section authorized him to suspend the 
privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, the author- 
ity to expire at the end of the succeeding session of 
Congress. 

The election of 1872 was approaching and there 
were signs of division among Republican leaders, but 
with a few exceptions the party stood well together 
in support of the Ku-Klux Bill as it was called. 

The Democrats of the Senate were vehement in 
opposition, even while admitting the existence of 
the outrages. Thurman declared the bill unconstitu- 
tional. But Morton, who led the Republican major- 
ity declared: "Shall Reconstruction be maintained; 
shall the constitutional amendments be upheld; shall 
the colored people be protected in their enjoyment 
of equal rights ; shall the Republicans of the South- 
ern States be protected in life, liberty, and property? 
— are the great issues to be settled in 1872." 

Eleven years later the Supreme Court of the United 
States declared the act unconstitutional. The court 



374 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

already in 1875 had declared unconstitutional the 
principal sections of the first Enforcement Act of 
May 31, 1870, "as involving the exercise by the 
United States of powers in excess of those granted 
by the Fifteenth Amendment." 

In only one instance did Grant make use of the 
extraordinary powers given him by the Ku-Klux Act; 
and that was in the case of South Carolina, which he 
had particularly in mind when he wrote his message. 
Scott, the carpet-bag Governor, had applied for 
troops, declaring that combinations of armed men, 
unauthorized by law, were committing acts of vio- 
lence in the State. On the 3d day of May Grant 
issued a proclamation declaring : " I will not hesitate 
to exhaust the powers thus vested in the Executive 
whenever and wherever it shall become necessary to 
do so for the purpose of securing to all citizens of 
the United States the peaceful enjoyment of the 
rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution and 
aws. 

On October 17, 1871, he issued a proclamation sus^ 
pending the writ of habeas corpus in nine countie. 1 
named. Under these proclamations many person; 
were arrested and some were prosecuted and pun 
ished. 

The measures taken had a speedy effect. Accord 
ing to the report of the Ku-Klux Investigating Com 



ENFORCEMENT ACTS 375 

mittee there was an "apparent cessation" of Ku- 
Klux operations by February 19, 1872. Grant in his 
annual message of December 2, 1872, declared that 
he could not question " the necessity and salutary 
effect" of the enforcement acts, and in his second 
inaugural, March 4, 1873, he felt justified in saying: 
" The States lately at war with the general Govern- 
ment are now happily rehabilitated and no execu- 
tive control is exercised in any one of them that 
would not be exercised in any other State under like 
circumstances." 

To Grant's firmness in using the instruments of 
enforcement placed in his hands by Congress must 
be attributed in great measure this result. A weaker 
Executive would have dallied with the disturbances 
until they passed beyond control. He regretted the 
necessity, but it was his nature to enforce obedience 
to the law — a part of his day's work. In Grant's 
second Administration there were racial and politi- 
cal conflicts in Louisiana, Mississippi, and South 
Carolina which necessitated the interposition of fed- 
eral troops. That is an unhappy episode in American 
history, which in its proper place shall have a chap- 
ter to itself. 

In bright contrast is the gradual extension of am- 
nesty to former participants in rebellion. By special 
acts amnesty was extended to 3185 former Confed- 



376 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

erates during the Forty-first Congress, which came to 
an end March 4, 1871, but many Southerners were 
too proudly sensitive to petition for a removal of 
their disabilities. General legislation was needed to 
obviate these special acts. 

A magnanimous and lucid paragraph illuminates 
Grant's annual message of December 4, 1871 : " More 
than six years having elapsed since the last hostile 
gun was fired between the armies then arrayed 
against each other — one for the perpetuation, the 
other for the destruction, of the Union — it may well 
be considered whether it is not now time that the 
disabilities imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment 
should be removed. That amendment does not ex- 
clude the ballot, but only imposes the disability to 
hold offices upon certain classes. When the purity of 
the ballot is secure, majorities are sure to elect offi- 
cers reflecting the views of the majority. I do not see 
the advantage or propriety of excluding men from 
office merely because they were before the rebellion 
of standing and character sufficient to be elected to 
positions requiring them to take oaths to support the 
Constitution, and admitting to eligibility those enter- 
taining precisely the same views but of less standing 
in their communities. It may be said that the former 
violated an oath, while the latter did not; the latter 
did not have it in their power to do so. If they had 



AMNESTY 377 

taken this oath, it cannot be doubted they would 
have broken it as did the former class." But he 
added, with Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson, and 
perhaps others in mind: "If there are any great crim- 
inals, distinguished above all others for the part they 
took in opposition to the Government, they might, 
in the judgment of Congress, be excluded from such 
an amnesty." 

A bill providing for general amnesty had passed the 
House. It would have passed the Senate had not 
Sumner insisted on his supplementary Civil Rights 
Bill as an amendment. 

This Civil Rights Bill, which Sumner's biographer 
summarizes as prohibiting discriminations against 
colored people "by common carriers, by proprietors 
of theaters and inns, managers of schools, of cemeter- 
ies and of churches, or as to service as jurors in any 
courts, state or national," was peculiarly obnoxious 
to the Southern whites as an attempt to force upon 
them social equality with the negro, and it was 
equally offensive to Northern men who resented 
such an attempt by the National Government to in- 
terfere with perfectly natural social conditions within 
the States. 

Its enactment would have done the negro a poor 
service; but this the devoted Sumner could not com- 
prehend, and owing to his obduracy, in face of the 



378 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

appeals of some of the negroes' best friends in Con- 
gress, the Amnesty Bill failed of passage. Finally in 
May, 1872, a bill for general amnesty passed the 
House unanimously, and after Sumner's civil rights 
amendment had been voted down, passed the Senate 
with equal celerity. This bill did not go so far as the 
bill which Sumner killed in the Senate. It left be- 
tween three hundred and five hundred former Con- 
federates still subject to political disabilities. 

Sumner, who cast one of two negatives, said he 
could not vote for it " while the colored race are 
shut out from their rights and the ban of color is 
recognized in this chamber. Sir, the time has not 
come for amnesty. You must be just to the colored 
race before you are generous to former rebels." 

Grant signed the bill on May 22, 1872. It removed 
the disabilities of all except Senators and Representa- 
tives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Con- 
gresses, officers in the judicial, military, and naval 
service of the United States, heads of departments 
and foreign ministers of the United States. But the 
disabilities of men of this excepted class were re- 
moved later as occasion required, and many of them 
rendered their reunited country unselfish and patri 
otic service. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 
CAUSES FOR PARTY DISAFFECTION 

" He has sat by and seen the country tolerably well 
governed," said Samuel Bowles in the " Springfield 
Republican" in November, 1871. Bowles was good 
at epigram. He was a journalist of rare attainments, 
of fine ideals in politics, of vivid personality, with a 
suggestion of the iconoclast. He never hesitated to 
differ with contemporaries, even his closest friends. 
With most of them he took issue at the very beginning 
of Grant's Administration, when, two days after the 
precedent-smashing appointments to the Cabinet 
were made public, he wrote to Henry L. Dawes: "I 
like the Cabinet — you ought to like it because it is 
a revolution, because it breaks up rings, and makes 
reform more easy and possible"; and he may have 
been less surprised than others because a month 
earlier he had written: "My opinion is that Grant's 
Cabinet and the way it is made up will prove a bomb- 
shell, in especial congressional and political circles." 
Plainly a change had come upon the vision of the 
Springfield seer. The change was typical of many of 
his kind, and it foreshadowed happenings which, 
while they had but little influence on Grant's career, 



380 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

have had a share in fixing the repute of his Adminis- 
tration quite out of keeping with their bearing on the 
times. Though Bowles was not a bookish man, and 
gained his learning almost wholly from his daily con- 
tact with the world, absorbing information here and 
there as bees suck honey, he had the delicate sense of 
values with which all writers for the press should be 
endowed, combined with the fine fervor befitting one 
who had passed through the fires of a great moral 
conflict and a civil war, and thus had much in com- 
mon with men like Adams, Godkin, Curtis, Schurz, 
and Sumner, who ranked him easily in scholarship, 
though not in high ideals. His taste was for the 
" literary fellers," whom Zachariah Chandler bap- 
tized with expletives when Lowell intruded on the 
patronage preserves by taking office as Minister to 
Spain. Men of his type idealized the finer qualities in 
Grant which marked heroic moments in his military 
career. Grant's quiet simplicity and reserve appealed 
to them, — his complete indifference to the fame 
which soldiers are supposed to crave. 

" I am no great admirer of military heroes," wrote 
Motley to the Duchess of Argyle a few weeks after 
Appomattox, " but we needed one at this period, and 
we can never be too thankful that such a one was 
vouchsafed to us — one so vast and fertile in concep- 
tion, so patient in waiting, so rapid in striking, had 



CAUSES FOR PARTY DISAFFECTION 381 

come, and withal so destitute of personal ambition, so 
modest, so averse to public notoriety. The man on 
whom the gaze of both hemispheres has been steadily 
concentrated for two years seems ever shrinking from 
observation. All his admiration warmly expressed is 
for Sherman and Sheridan. So long as we can pro- 
duce such a man as Grant our Republic is safe. . . . 
There is something very sublime to my imagination 
in the fact that Grant has never yet set his foot in 
Richmond, and perhaps never will." A rare tribute 
and merited; but how strangely in contrast with the 
vituperative lashings by Motley's friend Sumner, six 
years later. 

And this from Holmes to Motley is characteristic of 
exchanges between friends in the Boston group: " He 
is one of the simplest, stillest men I ever saw. . . . 
Of all the considerable personages I have seen, he 
appears to me to be the least capable of an emotion of 
vanity. . . . Did he enjoy the being followed as he 
was by the multitude? ' It was very painful.' This 
answer is singularly characteristic of the man. ... I 
cannot get over the impression he made on me. I 
have got something like it from women sometimes, 
hardly ever from men — that of entire loss of self- 
hood in a great aim, which made all the common in- 
fluences which stir up other people as nothing to him." 

Such was the figure Grant cut in scholarly imag- 



382 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

inations while the halo of successful generalship was 
new upon him and before his garments had been 
soiled by contact with the slime of politics. Had he 
been endowed with a taste for things which men of 
culture fancy, or been much inclined to their com- 
panionship, he might well have retained their liking 
and support even though he had shattered their 
ideals and their fine faith in his political impeccabil- 
ity. They would have been more willing to charge to 
the requirements of the time unhappy incidents 
which offended them, and history would have been 
spared the sorry spectacle of personal quarrels and 
unjust attacks upon his motives and sincerity. The 
times were doubtless ripe for punishment, but not 
for such as that which men like Sumner, Godkin, 
Bowles, and Schurz meted out to Grant, chiefly be- 
cause he lacked the social atmosphere to comprehend 
their point of view. 

Even before he had been sworn in as President he 
displeased many who would have been ready with 
advice by quite neglecting to seek counsel or ask for 
help in writing his inaugural and picking out a cabi- 
net. He was ingenuous as a child in politics, and be- 
fore he was thrown against the nation's conscious- 
ness by the rush of war had hardly shown even the 
ordinary interest in public questions which is sup- 
posed to be the birthright of every true American. 



CAUSES FOR PARTY DISAFFECTION 383 

His disagreeable encounter with the most unpleas- 
ant side of things in Johnson's Administration had 
emphasized his natural disinclination to fraternize 
with men trained in affairs. Before Appomattox he 
had known nothing of the ways of Washington ex- 
cept as he was made unpleasantly aware at times of 
bureaucratic interference with his military plans. He 
had never seen a legislative body in session, or vis- 
ited a state capital, save to capture it, except when 
he was waiting at Springfield for a regiment. 

His familiarity with literature hardly extended 
beyond his textbooks at West Point. He read novels 
sometimes for the story, never for the style. His li- 
brary was limited to the books on the center table in 
the parlor and the what-not in the corner. He cared 
little about history, except as he helped to make it 
or learned it by attrition in the process. 

He was indifferent to the literature even of his 
own trade. When he came home from the war Phila- 
delphia and Washington presented him with houses; 
Boston thought to show its gratitude by giving him 
a library. Samuel Hooper undertook to find out 
quietly what military books he had so that duplicates 
might be avoided, and discovered to his astonish- 
ment that Grant had no military books whatever. 
His proficiency in war came to him through intuition, 
and his genius for adapting military principles to un- 



384 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

foreseen emergencies and such capacity as he showed 
in public affairs came in the same way. " His states- 
manship," says Boutwell, " had no other art or magic 
in it than what may be found in the relations of an 
honest country people." 

The companions he liked and cultivated were 
not men who appealed to exquisite tastes. He had 
many more points of contact with the "generously 
good" George William Childs than with the schol- 
arly George William Curtis, political essayist and 
reformer. He took advice from Zachariah Chandler, 
John A. Logan, and Roscoe Conkling more readily 
than from Charles Sumner, Carl Schurz, and Lyman 
Trumbull. He grouped Adam Badeau and John 
Lothrop Motley as historians of similar merit, and 
personally preferred Badeau, who says Grant once 
offered him Motley's place in London, a decoration 
which Badeau with commendable self-abnegation 
brushed aside. 

Even with Fish, the ornament and pillar of his 
Administration, in whom he placed implicit confi- 
dence, and whom he favored as his own successor, 
there was so little intimacy that when years later the 
two were living near each other in New York, they 
hardly ever met. 

Grant had not been in the W'hite House a year be- 
fore signs of party disaffection were discernible. 



CAUSES FOR PARTY DISAFFECTION 385 

Sumner's break with the Administration over San 
Domingo was the first noticeable evidence of revolt 
against it, rendered all the more conspicuous be- 
cause Grant took his defeat so much to heart, after 
displaying a pertinacity of method better fitted to 
the conduct of a desperate military campaign than to 
the delicate negotiation of a parliamentary contro- 
versy requiring strategy and compromise. Grant's 
personal visits to the Capitol, his pressure upon re- 
luctant Senators, his persistent lobbying, his seem- 
ing lack of comprehension of the dignity of his high 
place, lowered him perceptibly in the estimation of 
men whose good opinion he should have been zealous 
to retain. The deposition of Sumner from his place 
at the head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Re- 
lations offended men of culture and literary attain- 
ments everywhere; for while they might not sym- 
Dathize with Sumner in his various perversities, he 
lad come to be regarded as an institution, one of the 
ew public men in Washington at that day who could 
)e safely matched against the statesmen of England, 
^rance, and Germany, trained in the universities. 

It was bad enough to have Sumner humiliated, but 
o have his mantle fall upon Simon Cameron, seemed 
o those who were not familiar with the Senate tra- 
ition determining committee rank by seniority a 
rutal and wanton affront. The recall of Motley 



386 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

quickly followed, and that, too, was regarded by 
those who were not familiar with all the circum-, 
stances as a deliberate injustice to a diplomatist of 
learning and distinction. It was no salve to lacerated 
sensibilities when General Robert C. Schenck was 
named as his successor, an Ohio Congressman oi 
moderate attainments, destined to earn some fame iD 
London as promoter of the Emma Mine and author 
of a textbook on draw poker. 

Grant's summary demand on June 15, 1870, for 
Judge Hoar's resignation as Attorney-General, anc 
his appointment of the unknown Akerman to fill tru 
vacancy, helped to intensify the feeling of distrust., 
It was not then generally known that Hoar was sacri-. 
ficed because the Southern Senators whose vote: 
Grant needed for his San Domingo Treaty insisted oi 
his putting a Southerner at the head of the Depart 
ment of Justice as the price of their support. It wa 
known simply that one of the two members of th 
Cabinet whom the independents and reformers hel 
in unreserved respect had been dismissed. 

The other was Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, who fror 
their point of view had made a fine record as Secre 
tary of the Interior, not only in honestly administei 
ing the affairs of his department, but in resisting th 
demands of patronage hunters in the Patent Office 
the Census Bureau, and the Indian Office, in protecl 



CAUSES FOR PARTY DISAFFECTION 387 

ing his clerks against political assessments and in his 
unswerving devotion to civil service reform. Within 
four months after Hoar's resignation, Cox also re- 
signed, making way for Columbus Delano, of Ohio, 
a politician of no special reputation whose service 
was characterized by acts of questionable propriety. 
Cox is the chronicler of the circumstances both of 
Hoar's withdrawal and of his own. He was in fre- 
quent friction with Cameron and Chandler, political 
managers who insisted that the clerks in the depart- 
ments should contribute a portion of their salaries to 
the party funds. Grant had said at the time of Hoar's 
resignation that " there was no man whom he loved 
more than Governor Cox"; but Chandler, Cameron, 
and the rest were a political necessity to him in Con- 
gress; and as between them and Cox there was no 
choice, Cox had to go. 

Cox's letter of resignation, written on October 3, 
1870, tells the story frankly, and concisely: "When 
Congress adjourned in the summer I was credibly 
informed that a somewhat systematic effort would 
be made before their reassembling in the winter to 
force a change in the policy we have pursued in the 
Interior Department. The removal of the Indian 
Service from the sphere of ordinary political patron- 
ige has been peculiarly distasteful to many influen- 
zal gentlemen in both houses; and in order to enable 



1 



388 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

you to carry out your purposes successfully, I am 
satisfied that you ought not to be embarrassed by 
any other causes of irritation in the same depart- 
ment. My views of the necessity of reform in the 
civil service have brought me more or less into colli- 
sion with the plans of our active political managers, 
and my sense of duty has obliged me to oppose some 
of their methods of action through the arrangement." 
Hoar never had the satisfaction of thus recording 
the reasons for his resignation, but Cox has saved the 
story as Hoar told it at the time: "I was sitting in 
my office yesterday morning attending to routine 
business," Hoar said on the day the astonished Cox 
saw the newspaper announcement of the Attorney- 
General's resignation, " with no more thought of 
what was to come than you had at that moment, 
when a messenger entered with a letter from the 
President. Opening it I was amazed to read a naked 
statement that he found himself under the necessity 
of asking for my resignation. No explanation of any 
kind was given or reason assigned. The request was, 
as curt and as direct as possible. My first thought 
was that the President had been imposed upon by 
some grave charge against me. A thunderclap could 
not have been more startling to me. I sat for a while 
wondering about it, what it could mean — why there! 
had been no warning, no reference to the subject ii 



CAUSES FOR PARTY DISAFFECTION 389 

our almost daily conversations. The impulse was to 
go at once and ask the reasons for the demand; but 
self-respect would not permit this, and I said to my- 
self that I must let the matter take its own course, 
and not even seem disturbed about it. I took up my 
pen to write the resignation and found myself natu- 
rally framing some of the conventional reasons for it, 
but I stopped and destroyed the sheet, saying to my- 
self, ' Since no reasons are given or suggested for the 
demand it is hardly honest to invent them in reply'; 
so I made the resignation as simple and unvarnished 
as the request for it had been." 

In spite of this unpleasant experience Hoar never 
wavered in his personal friendship for Grant and re- 
mained his stanch supporter to the end. Cox joined 
with Trumbull, Schurz, and Sumner in the Liberal 
Republican movement eighteen months later. 

The substitution of Akerman and Delano for Hoar 
and Cox lowered still further in the estimation of the 
critics a Cabinet which had been generously de- 
nounced at its beginning. Robeson, the Secretary of 
the Navy, a man of brilliant qualities, was acquiring 
a newspaper reputation not altogether deserved for 
extravagance and favoritism in the administration 
of his department. W. W. Belknap, the Secretary of 
War, was laying the foundations for the scandals 
which later led to his resignation in the face of im- 



390 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

peachment. The personnel of the Administration was 
held in light repute, especially with those who were 
far cleverer at writing history than at making it, 
though the ordinary citizen as shown in the election 
returns retained his confidence in Grant. 

The White House was populous with military aides 
who performed the duties usually assigned to civilian 
secretaries, — General Horace Porter, an accom- 
plished soldier with an aptitude for public service in 
which he afterwards gained high distinction; Genera 
Frederick Dent, the President's brother-in-law, com- 
panionable but useless; Babcock, likable, brilliant 
and untrustworthy. Grant was fond of them all, anc 
had faith in them, which in some cases was not wholly 
justified. 

The moment Grant began to emerge from obscur- 
ity at the beginning of the war, he was beset by rela- 
tives for favors, and so long as he was President, he 
had his sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins on his 
hands. His father was early at the game, as his 
correspondence shows. "Father also wrote about a 
Mr. Reed," Grant writes his sister from Cairo, in 
October, 1861. "He is now here, and will probably 
be able to secure a position. I do not want to be im- 
portuned for places. I have none to give and want 
to be placed under no obligation to any one. My 
influence, no doubt, would secure places with those 



CAUSES FOR PARTY DISAFFECTION 391 

under me, but I become directly responsible for the 
suitableness of the appointee, and then there is no 
telling at what moment I may have to put my hand 
upon the very person who has conferred the favor, or 
the one recommended by me." This was Grant's 
military instinct in time of war, but when it came 
to the Presidency, with innumerable places at his 
hand and no civil service regulations to interfere 
with their free distribution, it was not so easy to 
resist the appeals of relatives who wanted office for 
themselves and for their friends. 

He found his father postmaster at Covington, 
Kentucky, and kept him there. He made his brother- 
in-law Minister to Denmark. Upon other relatives of 
himself and of his wife he good-naturedly bestowed 
more or less lucrative positions, not many in the 
aggregate, but numerous enough to give color to the 
cry of "nepotism." Sumner, in his ridiculous ha- 
rangue against Grant in the Senate on May 31, 1872, 
devoted an amazing amount of space to showing 
" how the presidential office has been used to advance 
his own family on a scale of nepotism dwarfing every- 
thing of the kind in our history and hardly equaled 
in the corrupt governments where this abuse has 
most prevailed. . . . One list makes the number of 
beneficiaries as many as forty-two — being probably 
every known person allied to the President either by 



392 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

blood or marriage. Persons seeming to speak for the 
President, or at least after careful inquiries, have de- 
nied the accuracy of this list, reducing it to thirteen. 
It will not be questioned that there is at least a 
baker's dozen in this category — thirteen relations 
of the President billeted on the country, not one 
of whom but for this relationship would have been 
brought forward, the whole contributing a case of 
nepotism not unworthy of those worst governments 
where office is a family possession." 

Truly an appalling picture of the peril to the re- 
public embodied in consideration shown by a kindly 
disposed relative to old Jesse Grant, brother-in-law 
Cramer, and the other Grants and Dents. 

Grant accepted without compunction gifts which 
were showered upon him by a grateful people after 
the close of the war. Houses in Philadelphia and 
Washington, articles of greater or less intrinsic value, 
for most of which he had no use, and many of which 
remained unopened in the White House basement so 
long as he remained in Washington. He saw no im- 
propriety in taking presents even from those for whom 
he afterwards did favors, as sometimes happened. So 
straightforward was he in all his dealings that it 
never entered his own mind or the suspicions of those 
who knew him best that there was any improper con- 
nection between the favor and the gift, but traits 



CAUSES FOR PARTY DISAFFECTION 393 

of this kind offered rare ammunition to those who 
needed it in a political campaign. 

Grant was not fastidious in his friends. He picked 
them as he chose without regard to others' liking. 
When Rawlins died he lost the only man whose 
judgment about others had a deciding influence on 
his own. No one could fill the place which Rawlins 
left in his affection and respect, and Grant's associ- 
ates became more miscellaneous after death robbed 
him of Rawlins at the very threshold of his term. 

"What Grant needs," Charles Eliot Norton wrote 
to Curtis, "... is independent, sympathetic, intel- 
ligent, and trustworthy counselors. . . . He is easily 
influenced by what one may call second-class ideas if 
skilfully put before him; and his magnanimity, which 
was conspicuous during the war, degenerates into 
something not far from a vice in the peaceful regions 
of politics." 1 Norton here deftly caught a phase of 
Grant which few have seen; and yet there is no patent 
on his remedy. It takes no prescience for a stranger to 
discern a ruler's need of suitable advice. The counselor 
whom Norton had in mind was Curtis or some one 
else agreeable to both. But Grant had his own tastes 
and ways; he could not be made over. It is just pos- 
sible that in the long run it was quite as well. 
1 Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, vol. i, p. 413. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

REFORMS — THE TARIFF; THE CIVIL SERVICE; 
THE INDIAN 

It was open season for reformers; they were trying 
their luck at all sorts of abuses, real and imaginary. 
The protective tariff was a favorite shot, and " rev- 
enue reform" a popular cry — a recrudescence of the 
"free trade" policy which had prevailed since the 
beginning whenever Democrats were in control. But 
now it was not limited by party lines, for there were 
good Republicans who strongly urged revision of the 
Morrill Tariff enacted just before the outbreak of 
the Civil War. This sentiment was strong especially 
among Republicans in the Middle West, who had 
come to look upon the tariff as a scheme to benefit 
New England and Pennsylvania manufacturers. 
Men like Allison and Garfield, just rising into promi- 
nence in the House, urged a reduction in duties. 
Garfield, a student, was almost a free trader, an hon- 
orary member of the Cobden Club of England, but 
he was "practical" in his conception of the applica- 
tion of reform. "Whatever may be the personal or 
political consequences to myself," he told the House, 
" I shall try to act, first for the good of all and within 



REFORMS 395 

that limitation for the industrial interests of the dis- 
trict which I represent. ... If I can prevent it I 
shall not submit to a considerable reduction of a few 
leading articles in which my constituents are deeply 
interested when many others of a similar character 
are left untouched or the rate on them increased." 

The agitation resulted in the Tariff Act of 1870, in 
which after a hard struggle the friends of protection 
retained their advantage, the reduction in duties, 
counting both the free and dutiable list, averag- 
ing only about five per cent. The chief gain the re- 
formers made was in reducing the duty on pig iron 
from $9 to $7 per ton. The battle raged around pig 
iron. Horace Greeley told Garfield that if he could 
he would make the duty one hundred dollars a ton, 
and all other duties in proportion. It was a time of 
general recrimination. The friends of protection then 
as now were charged with working for the "inter- 
ests," while the attitude of the reformers was attrib- 
uted to the malign influence of the Cobden Club and 
lavish expenditure of " British gold." 

Grant made no boast of economic wisdom, but in 
his annual message of December, 1870, he said just 
enough to show that he had the tariff on his mind. It 
was the beginning of the short session of an expiring 
Congress and there could be no further legislation 
for at least a year. " Revenue reform has not been 



39G ULYSSES S. GRANT 

defined by any of its advocates to my knowledge," 
he wrote with pertinent irony, " but seems to be ac- 
cepted as something which is to supply every man's 
wants without any cost or effort on his part." His 
own opinion was that "with the revenue stamp dis- 
pensed by postmasters in every community, a tax 
upon liquors of all sorts, and tobacco in all its forms, 
and by a wise adjustment of the tariff, which will 
put a duty only upon those articles which we could 
dispense with, known as luxuries, and on those 
which we use more of than we produce, revenue 
enough may be raised after a few years of peace and 
consequent reduction of indebtedness to fulfill all our 
obligations. . . . Revenue reform, if it means this, has 
my hearty support. If it implies a collection of all 
the revenue for the support of the Government, for 
the payment of principal and interest of the public 
debt, pensions, etc., by directly taxing the people, 
then I am against revenue reform, and confidently 
believe the people are with me. If it means failure to 
provide the necessary means to defray all the ex- 
penses of government and thereby repudiation of the 
public debt and pensions, then I am still more op- 
posed to such kind of revenue reform." 

A year later at the beginning of the new Congress 
he again took up the question urging that the surplus 
be reduced "in such a manner as to afford the great- 



REFORMS 397 

est relief to the greatest number," and recommending 
the "free list" for many articles not produced at 
home "which enter largely into general consumption 
through articles which are manufactured at home 
from which little revenue is derived." Should a fur- 
ther reduction be advisable, he suggested "that it 
be made upon those articles which can best bear it 
without disturbing home production or reducing 
the wages of America's labor." 

Two tariff bills were enacted by the new Congress; 
one which Grant signed on May 1, 1872, put tea and 
coffee on the free list, thus contributing to " the 
free breakfast table" extolled by Republican protec- 
tionists. The second, approved May 3, 1872, was a 
compromise. It lowered duties on a good many arti- 
cles, among them salt, bituminous coal, tin, leather, 
manufactures of cotton, wool, iron, and steel, shaved 
the stamp taxes, and forgot to renew the friendless 
income tax. The act, like all tariff compromises, was 
a log-rolling affair. Samuel Bowles wrote one of his 
comforting letters to his dear friend Henry L. Dawes, 
who managed the bill in the House as chairman of the 
Ways and Means Committee: " You certainly have 
won a brilliant victory on the tariff. ... It is not 
statesmanship and you know it. . . . There is a bet- 
ter way of making a tariff than by a combination or 
compromise of all the cotton mills and woolen mills 



398 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and sheep farmers and pin factories and coal mines of 
all the congressional districts of the land." 

The times were shaping for revolt. So virulent were 
the attacks on Grant by men like Sumner, Schurz, 
and Godkin, that it was easy to forget what he had 
done for causes they had much at heart. They were 
so busy throwing remorseless lights on faults which 
now, when we look back on them, seem trifling, that 
they neglected merits better worth their while, and 
left unpraised his high accomplishments. 

Who now remembers that Grant was first among 
our Presidents to emphasize the need of change in 
federal appointments so that they should be made 
for merit, not for pull? Yet he went farther on the 
road to a clean civil service than all his predecessors 
in the preceding forty years. Lincoln, like every 
other President since Jackson, had accepted the 
spoils system as a commonplace of government. Po- 
litical considerations decided almost every case of 
office-filling from clerkships to the Cabinet. All 
through the war the trail of spoils was visible in mili- 
tary things. Butler and McClernand were not the 
only politicians whose epaulettes bore stars. That 
Lincoln's final break with Chase should be upon a 
piece of petty patronage was taken as an incident in 
course. When Sumner introduced a bill in 1864 es- 
tablishing the merit system it was treated lightly by 



REFORMS 399 

his colleagues as one of Sumner's fads. Yet at the 
outset of his Administration Grant tackled this un- 
profitable question which others had ignored. 

"Nor have we had from any President a single 
word of manly protest against this monstrous sys- 
tem," said George William Curtis, the accepted 
leader of the civil service reformers, before a group 
of men who thought with him in 1869, " until now 
President Grant says in words which in spirit are 
worthy to stand with those of Washington,' There has 
been no hesitation in changing officials in order to 
secure an efficient execution of the laws; sometimes, 
too, when in mere party view undesirable political 
results were likely to follow. Nor has there been any 
hesitation in sustaining efficient officials against re- 
monstrances wholly political.' At last, thank God, 
we have got a President whom trading politicians did 
not elect, and who is no more afraid of them than he 
was of rebels, and these manly and simple words are 
as full of cheerful promise as the bulletins of his ad- 
vance upon Vicksburg." 

But such exuberance of eulogy was not to be main- 
tained, though in his second annual message Grant 
denounced the spoils system as "an abuse of long 
standing" which he would like to see remedied at 
once. He would have the merit system cover not 
only the tenure but the manner of making all ap- 



400 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

pointments. " There is no duty which so much em- 
barrasses the Executive and heads of departments as 
that of appointments. Nor is there any such arduous 
and thankless labor imposed on Senators and Repre- 
sentatives as that of finding places for constituents. 
The present system does not secure the best men and 
often not even fit men for public place. The eleva- 
tion and purification of the civil service of the Gov- 
ernment will be hailed with approval by the whole 
people of the United States." Here was a new note 
in executive communications. A few weeks later he 
signed the first Civil Service Reform Bill ever passed 
by Congress, providing for a commission to establish 
regulations to ascertain the fitness of candidates for 
office; and he named Curtis as its chairman. 

At the very beginning of the next session, in De- 
cember, 1871, he urged on Congress in a special 
message appropriations to perpetuate the Commis- 
sion. " If left to me without further congressional 
action the rules . . . will be faithfully executed; but 
they are not binding without further legislation 
upon my successor. ... I ask for all the strength 
which Congress can give me to enable me to carry 
out the reforms in the civil service recommended by 
the Commission." 

Congress, wedded to the spoils system, soon cut 
off the appropriation altogether. Ardent reformers 



REFORMS 401 

blamed Grant for not doing more, but it would have 
taken all Grant's influence to force on Congress the 
merit system as a permanent policy at that time, 
and he had none to spare. Few Senators or Repre- 
sentatives had any use for it. The strongest of them, 
like Morton, Chandler, Conkling, Carpenter, and 
Cameron, held it in contempt; most people did not 
care. It was the favorite issue of a group of scholarly 
men, of high ideals, but neither numerous nor po- 
tential then or for years thereafter. It was greatly 
to Grant's credit that he went so far along the path 
they led, yet he was subject to attack because he 
did not force the unattainable. Had he urged a civil 
service propaganda in and out of season and made 
"reform" the cry of his Administration, he would 
no doubt have held the adoration of essayists and 
historians, and faults which they have emphasized 
might then have been excused. But the time was 
far from ripe for these new-fangled civil service 
methods and he had infinitely greater problems 
pressingly in hand — the maintenance of our pres- 
tige abroad, the safeguarding of American lives and 
property on foreign soil, the rigid execution of the 
law at home, the firm establishment of public credit. 
Reform might wait upon the growth of public senti- 
ment and the dissemination of right ideas, but these 
fundamental things involving the perpetuity of gov- 



402 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

eminent itself must be attended to at once or not 
at all. All others must be made subordinate to 
them. 

Thus it came about that, after a few years of trial 
with an unpaid board, he found it useless to keep 
up the fight alone, and in his message of December, 
1874, acknowledging the obvious, he frankly an- 
nounced to Congress that, if adjournment came 
without positive legislation in support of civil serv- 
ice reform, " I will regard such action as a disap 
proval of the system and will abandon it except sc 
far as to require examinations for certain appointees 
to determine their fitness. Competitive examina- 
tions will be abandoned." He could not let the op- 
portunity go by without a dig at a too common trait 
of advocates of the merit system then and since :i 
" Generally," he said, " the support which this re-i 
form receives is from those who give it their support 
only to find fault when the rules are apparently de- 
parted from." On the whole he thought the rules 
had been beneficial and had tended to the elevatior 
of the service. "The gentlemen who have giver, 
their services without compensation as members ol 
the board to devise rules and regulations for thd 
government of the civil service of the country havd 
shown much zeal and earnestness in their work, and i 
to them as well as to myself it will be a source o. 






REFORMS 403 

mortification if it is to be thrown away. But I repeat 
that it is impossible to carry this system to a suc- 
cessful issue without general approval and assistance 
and positive law to support it." 

In all the circumstances this was common sense, 
and Curtis recognized it later when he said: "A 
President who should alone undertake to reform the 
evil must feel it to be the vital and permanent issue 
and must be willing to hazard everything for its suc- 
cess. He must have the absolute faith and the in- 
domitable will of Luther, 'Here stand I; I can no 
other.' . . . General Grant, elected by a spontane- 
ous patriotic impulse, fresh from the regulated order 
of military life, and new to politics and politicians, 
saw the reason and the necessity of reform. . . . Con- 
gress, good-naturedly tolerating what it considered 
lis whim of inexperience, granted money to try an 
experiment. The adverse pressure was tremendous. 
I am used to pressure,' smiled the soldier. So he 
vas, but not to this pressure. He was driven by un- 
known and incalculable currents. He was enveloped 
a whirlwinds of sophistry, scorn, and incredulity. 
le who upon his own line had fought it out all sum- 
aer to victory, upon a line absolutely new and un- 
sown was naturally bewildered and dismayed. . . . 
t was indeed a surrender, but it was the surrender 
f a champion who had honestly mistaken both the 



404 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

nature and the strength of the adversary and his own 
power of endurance." 

Grant did not then receive the credit as a pioneer 
which history must assign him. He had no gift for 
advertising his own wares, and he was so lacking in a 
politician's artifice that in the eyes of critics some of 
his very merits wore the guise of faults. In this as 
in too many other things he was the victim of hi? 
honesty. 

Grant's interest in the Indians dates from his lif< 
in the Far West, when as a young army officer he sa^ 
with what injustice they were treated by the whites 
George W. Childs says that he "then made up hi.> 
mind if he ever had any influence or power it shoulc 
be exercised to try to ameliorate their condition.' 
He was as good as his word. Brief as was his first in 
augural, it was long enough to contain a reference t< 
" the proper treatment of the original occupants o 
this land," as deserving careful study. " I will favo: 
any course toward them which tends to their civili 
zation and ultimate citizenship." He appointed ai 
Indian Commission headed by William Welsh, o 
Philadelphia, whom Hayes later made Minister b 
England, and composed largely of leading member 
of the Society of Friends, which he pointed out in hi 
annual message of December, 1869, " is well known a 
having succeeded in living in peace with the IndiaD 



REFORMS 405 

in the early settlement of Pennsylvania while their 
white neighbors of other sects in other sections were 
constantly embroiled." He adopted the novel policy 
of giving all the agencies to such religious denomina- 
tions as had established missionaries among the In- 
dians, the societies selecting their own agents subject 
to the approval of the Executive. In his second 
annual message, he wrote: "I entertain the confi- 
dent hope that the policy now pursued will in a few 
years bring all the Indians upon reservations where 
they will live in houses and have schoolhouses and 
churches and will be pursuing peaceful and self- 
sustaining avocations and where they may be visited 
by the law-abiding white man with the same im- 
punity that he now visits the civilized white settle- 
ments." Here we have the first serious attempt at 
a humanitarian treatment of the Indian by the 
Government — the germ of whatever benefit has 
come to him as the nation's ward. Yet Grant was 
duly censured because an Indian ring infested the 
Interior Department as had been the case before his 
day and has been ever since. 

" The most troublesome men in public life," said 
Grant a few years later, " are those over-righteous 
people who see no motives in other people's ac- 
tions but evil motives, who believe all public life is 
corrupt, and nothing is well done unless they do it 



400 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

themselves. They are narrow-headed men, their two 
eyes so close together that they can look out of the 
same gimlet-hole without winking." Fish in his "Di- 
ary" tells how during the San Domingo controversy 
Grant remarked: "It is strange that men cannot al- 
low others to differ with them, without charging cor- 
ruption as the cause of difference. . . . There is little 
inducement other than a sense of duty in holding 
public position in this country — but for that I do 
not know what there is to induce a man to take either 
the place I hold, or one in the Cabinet, and were it 
not for that I would resign immediately." Remarks 
which help us better to understand the loyalty with 
which he stood behind those men in his Administra- 
tion who were most violently assailed. 






CHAPTER XXXIX 

THE GREELEY EPISODE 

Among the public men of the Reconstruction period 
Carl Schurz had a place peculiarly his own. Never a 
force of much constructive influence he was for years 
a striking figure, an irrepressible critic, an apostle of 
unrest, who though not popular himself had popu- 
lar repute. A Prussian by birth, a revolutionist and 
refugee of 1848, he came to comprehend the theory of 
American institutions as few Americans have com- 
prehended it, yet in the very atmosphere of liberty 
he remained a revolutionist and dissenter to the end. 
He never became completely Americanized or local- 
ized. He lacked the "homing instinct." After leav- 
ing his native country, he lived successively in Swit- 
zerland, France, and England, and coming to the 
United States in 1852 he fluttered over Pennsylvania, 
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Missouri, before finally 
alighting in New York. He never remained long with 
any political group or respected party fealty. 

Minister to Spain at the beginning of the war and 
afterwards a brigadier-general of volunteers, he was 
unsparing in censure of his military and civilian su- 
periors. His admonitions at a trying moment in the 



408 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

darkest days of the struggle elicited from the long- 
suffering Lincoln a caustic rebuke which has become 
an epistolary classic. 1 

As an editor in Missouri directly after the war, 
Schurz supported radical Reconstruction measures. 
As Johnson's messenger to the South in 1865, he 
made a report which was used by radical leaders in 
Congress against Johnson's policies. He was elected 
a Republican Senator in 1869; yet he was hardly in 
his seat before he broke with Grant, joining Sumner 
in opposition to the San Domingo Treaty. He voted 
for all except the last of the enforcement acts, which 
he held to be unconstitutional, and had the satisfac- 
tion years later of seeing the Supreme Court declare 

1 " I have just received and read your letter of the 26th. The 
purport of it is that we lost the last elections and the Administra- 
tion is failing because the war is unsuccessful, and that I must not 
flatter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly 
know that if the war fails, the Administration fails, and that I will 
be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be 
blamed if I could do better. You think I could do better; there- 
fore you blame me already. I think I could not do better, there- 
fore I blame you for blaming me. I understand you now to be 
willing to accept the help of men who are not Republicans, pro- 
vided they have ' heart in it.' Agreed. I want no others. But who 
is to be the judge of hearts or of 'heart in it'? If I must discard 
my own judgment and take yours, I must also take that of others; 
and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, 
I should have none left, Republicans or others — not even your- 
self. For be assured, my dear sir, there are men who 'have heart 
in it' that think you are performing your part as poorly as you 
think I am performing mine." (Letter to Carl Schurz, November 
2t, 1SG2. Lincoln's Complete Works, vol. n, p. 257.) 



THE GREELEY EPISODE 409 

unconstitutional acts for which he voted as well as 
that to which he was opposed. He was a lucid and 
logical writer, a master of English style, a speaker of 
unusual ability when thoroughly prepared, a critic, a 
musician, a man of culture who in another country 
might have played a large part in Government, but 
whose talents were ineffective here because of his in- 
satiate appetite for opposition amounting to a pas- 
sion for minorities. 

Schurz more than any other single individual was 
responsible for the Liberal Republican movement of 
1872. It was at his instigation that the call was is- 
sued for the national convention which nominated 
Greeley in Cincinnati. Dissent in Missouri depended 
on conditions peculiar to the State, just as dissent 
in Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, and other 
places was determined largely by local conditions in 
every case. But it happened that Missouri furnished 
the earliest opportunity for organized protest against 
Administration tendencies. On a question of local 
interest — the reenfranchisement of Southern sym- 
pathizers — Republican dissenters nominated for 
Governor B. Gratz Brown, and he was elected by 
a combination with the Democrats, thus turning the 
State over to Democratic control. Frank P. Blair 
had already been chosen Senator. 

There was nothing national in the issue of reen- 



410 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

franchisement, for Grant had urged a general am- 
nesty, and Congress was on the point of granting it, 
but Schurz had become an advocate of tariff reform, 
and that was made a plank in his new party plat- 
form. Greeley, in the "New York Tribune," char- 
acterized the Missouri Liberals as bolters. Schurz, 
perceiving signs of discontent in other States as the 
time for electing a new President approached, con- 
vened his new party at Jefferson City on January 24, 
1872. The name of "Liberal Republicans" was as- 
sumed and a call was issued to all Republicans op- 
posing the Administration and favoring reform to 
meet in Cincinnati on the first Wednesday in May. 
There was plenty of material at hand for such a 
gathering, although there was no common bond of 
sympathy except dissatisfaction with Grant and his 
Administration. In New Y^ork there was a factional 
quarrel. The two United States Senators were in 
fighting mood. Reuben E. Fenton, a crafty political 
manipulator, had been the leader of the State while 
Governor from 1865 to 1869, but Conkling had 
gained ascendancy with the Administration in Wash- 
ington. Greeley, always afflicted with the itch for 
office, was Fenton's candidate for Governor in 1870, 
but was beaten in convention. In the convention of 
1871 there was a titanic struggle for supremacy, and 
Conkling, taking command in person of his forces 



THE GREELEY EPISODE 411 

on the floor, had driven the friends of Greeley and 
Fenton out, and assumed full control of the party 
organization. 

Greeley had long been querulous about the Na- 
tional Administration. Both he and Fenton now 
attributed their defeat to Conkling's use of federal 
patronage and to Grant's support. They thus were 
ripe for the revolt which had been shaping in the 
West. It was hard for Greeley, the most vociferous 
advocate of high protection in the United States, to 
swallow the Missouri Liberals' declaration for "a 
genuine reform of the tariff," but let that question 
be laid aside, he intimated in the " Tribune," " and 
we will go to Cincinnati." In due season he signed 
the response of Eastern Republicans to the Missouri 
invitation, but outside their own State the New York 
men in the convention found few except free traders. 

The Cincinnati gathering did not consist of dele- 
gates regularly chosen; but any person of Republican 
antecedents was permitted to participate. No such 
collection of curiously assorted men ever before or 
since has undertaken to organize a political party. 
The Liberal Republican movement, in so far as it 
embodied a real passion for reform, was peculiarly 
the product of writers for the press. 

Schurz was an editor and pamphleteer by prefer- 
ence, and with him in the instigation of revolt were 



412 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Samuel Bowles, of the " Springfield Republican," 
Murat Halstead, of the " Cincinnati Commercial," 
Joseph Medill, Horace White, of the " Chicago Trib- 
une," Alexander K. McClure, of the " Philadelphia 
Times," E. L. Godkin, of the " Nation," and Wil- 
liam Cullen Bryant, of the "New York Evening 
Post." On some things they were agreed, on others 
they were wide apart. The movement at its incep- 
tion was under the guidance of writers, theorists, 
dissenters, and doctrinaires, most of whom had done 
a vast amount of thinking about how the Govern- 
ment ought to be run, but few of whom had ever 
really tried their hand at helping run it. Almosl 
without exception in the beginning they were men 
of fine ideals, but as the organization took shape, it 
drew in the customary quota of disappointed and 
discredited politicians. 

There were a few men with both real political ex- 
perience and high principles like John M. Palmer 
and Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, Stanley Matthews, 
George Hoadley, and Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, Austin 
Blair, the War Governor of Michigan. Finally there 
were men like David A. Wells, Theodore Tilton, Ed- 
ward Atkinson, Frank W. Bird, and General William 
F. Bartlett, some of them faddists, none of them with 
experience in elective office. Sumner, David Davis, 
and Charles Francis Adams were among the later 



THE GREELEY EPISODE 413 

acquisitions. The germinating force was in the edi- 
torial rooms of the " Chicago Tribune," the " Spring- 
field Republican," the " Cincinnati Commercial," 
the " Nation," the " New York Evening Post," the 
" New York Tribune," and the " Louisville Courier- 
Journal," this last a Democratic paper rich in the 
fulminations of Henry Watterson. Some of these 
were less intense in their allegiance at the beginning 
than others, but all in time joined in the cry against 
Grant, though most of them were sorely disappointed 
in the work of their convention. 

Had they realized it they were doomed to failure 
from the start, for they were lacking, not only in the 
sagacity of the professional politician, but in the im- 
pulse of an absorbing moral issue. Perhaps their 
greatest lack was in a vivid personality to embody 
their conception of reform. It is strange that observ- 
ant newspaper editors could have imagined a success- 
ful campaign against a party entrenched in power, 
under such leadership as that to which they were 
confined, — Charles Francis Adams, Lyman Trum- 
bull, David Davis, Horace Greeley, — all men without 
organized political or personal following and none 
except Davis with practical political sense. 

"The office-seeking fraternity," says Horace 
White, "were mostly supporters of Davis, whose 
appearance as a candidate for the Presidency was 



4H ULYSSES S. GRANT 

extremely offensive to the original promoters of the 
movement. As a judge of the Supreme Court his 
incursion into the field of politics, unheralded, but 
not unprecedented, was an indecorum. Moreover, 
his supporters had not been early movers in the 
ranks of reform. . . . Davis's chances were early 
demolished by the editorial fraternity, who, at a din- 
ner at Murat Halstead's house, resolved that they 
would not support him if nominated, and caused 
that fact to be made known. Greeley's candidacy 
had not been taken seriously by the editors at Hal- 
stead's dinner-party. . . . Adams and Trumbull were 
the only men supposed by us to be within the sphere 
of nomination, and the chances of Adams were 
deemed the better of the two. We had yet to learn 
that there are occasions and crowds where personal 
oddity and a flash of genius under an old white hat 
are more potent than high ancestry or approved 
statesmanship, or both those qualifications joined 
together." l 

The austere Adams at least was wise enough to 
recognize his own defects as a candidate. " If I am to 
be negotiated for and have assurances given that I 
am honest, you will be so kind as to draw me out of 
that crowd," he wrote to David A. Wells as he was 
sailing for Europe to attend the Court of Geneva 
1 Life of Lyman Trumbull, pp. 380-81. 



THE GREELEY EPISODE 415 

Arbitration, a fortnight before the convention. ... "I 
never had a moment's belief that when it came to 
the point, any one so entirely isolated as I am from 
all political associations of any kind could be made 
acceptable as a candidate for public office; but I am 
so unlucky as to value that independence more highly 
than the elevation which is brought by a sacrifice of 
it. . . . If the good people who meet at Cincinnati 
really believe that they need such an anomalous 
being as I am (which I do not), they must express 
it in a manner to convince me of it, or all their labor 
will be thrown away." 

Impossible material for a successful candidate for 
votes, yet such was the idealistic and impractical 
character of the disinterested devotees of the new 
cult that the optimistic Bowles made this deadly 
letter public in the innocent belief that it would bring 
about the writer's nomination and election. 

Not only did Greeley capture the nomination, 
but he kept out of the platform any endorsement of 
tariff reform, the one live issue outside Grant's per- 
sonality upon which the promoters of the convention 
came nearest to being united. He was the most ir- 
reconcilable protectionist in the United States; he 
was far less friendly than Grant to civil service re- 
form, and had been profanely emphatic in expressing 
his contempt for the merit test. It was a cruel 



416 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

awakening for the protagonists of revolt, many of 
them scholars loyal to the universities, who with wry 
faces found themselves straggling behind the fan- 
tastic banner of the most trenchant opponent of 
the theories they had most at heart, and marveling 
at their complaisance as they recalled the pungent 
prayer with which tradition says he used to enliven 
the youthful meditations of aspiring writers for the 
" Tribune," " Of all horned cattle, God deliver me 
from the college graduate!" 

Stanley Matthews, the temporary chairman, went 
back to Grant as soon as possible, writing to a friend: 
" I am greatly chagrined at the whole matter, my 
own participation in it included, and have concluded 
. . . that as a politician and a President-maker I am 
not a success." William Cullen Bryant wrote to 
Trumbull: "We who know Mr. Greeley know that 
his administration, should he be elected, cannot be 
otherwise than shamefully corrupt. . . . There is 
no abuse or extravagance into which that mi 
through the infirmity of his judgment may not 
betrayed. It is wonderful how little in some of his 
vagaries the scruples which would influence other 
men of no exemplary integrity restrain him." Trum- 
bull could think of no better reason for supporting 
him than that he was " an honest but confiding man" 
who with proper surroundings " would be an im- 
provement on what we have." 






THE GREELEY EPISODE 417 

" The wiser heads in the convention were stunned," 
wrote Horace White. " Of all the things which could 
possibly happen, this was the one thing which every- 
body supposed could not happen." Carl Schurz, 
chagrined at the result, wrote Greeley inviting him 
to withdraw, presenting all the discouraging fea- 
tures, " and now if the developments of the campaign 
should be such as to disappoint your hopes, it shall 
not be my fault if you are deceived about the real 
state of things." Yet Schurz would support Greeley 
"in a modified and guarded manner." So satisfied 
was he of " the necessity of defeating Grant and dis- 
solving party organization " that he was all ready to 
use any instrument for the purpose, looking forward 
" with a hopefulness bordering on enthusiasm to the 
good things which will grow out of the confusion 
following on Greeley's election" — an opportunist 
view which Godkin could not accept, glad as he 
should be to join Schurz in supporting Greeley, 
' Schurz being the one man in American politics who 
nspires Godkin with some hope concerning them." 
?arke Godwin was even more bitter: " The man is a 
:harlatan from top to bottom, and the smallest kind 
)f a charlatan, from no other motive than a weak and 
merile vanity. His success in politics would be the 
uccess of whoever is most wrong in theory and most 
corrupt in practice. . . . Grant and his crew are bad 



418 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

— but hardly so bad as Greeley and his would be." 
The country surely was in sorry straits when those 
who had constituted themselves its only hope were 
limited to such alternatives. 

The free traders in New York held a mass meeting 
at Steinway Hall, invited to a conference those who 
favored a less rigid protective policy than Greeley's, 
and nominated William S. Groesbeck for President. 
The invitation was signed by Carl Schurz, perma- 
nent chairman of the Cincinnati Convention, J. D. 
Cox, W. C. Bryant, D. A. Wells, Oswald Ottendorfer, 
and Jacob Brinkerhoff — dissenters from dissent, who 
in due time came back to Greeley after the Democrats 
at Baltimore had endorsed the Cincinnati ticket. 

An "Address to the People of the United States" 
was issued at Cincinnati to launch the platform ol 
principles. It was an undiluted denunciation ol, 
Grant: "The President of the United States ha; 
openly used the powers and opportunities of his hif 
office for the promotion of personal ends. He hs 
kept notoriously corrupt and unworthy men ii, 
places of power and responsibilities to the detrimen 
of the public interest. He has used the public servic, 
of the Government as machinery of corruption an* 
personal influence and has interfered with tyrannic.' 
arrogance in the public affairs of States and munk 
palities. He has rewarded with influential and lucn 



THE GREELEY EPISODE 419 

tive offices men who had acquired his favor by valua- 
ble presents, thus stimulating the demoralization of 
our political life by his conspicuous example. He has 
shown himself deplorably unequal to the task im- 
posed upon him by the necessities of the country and 
culpably careless of the responsibilities of his high 
office." His partisans were denounced for standing 
" in the way of necessary investigations and indis- 
pensable reforms"; for keeping alive "the passions 
and resentments of the late Civil War . . . instead 
of appealing to the better instincts and latent patriot- 
ism of the Southern people"; for "base sycophancy 
to the dispenser of executive power and patronage, 
unworthy of republican freemen." 

Following this denunciatory address the platform 
reads tamely. It demanded the " immediate and ab- 
solute removal of all disabilities imposed on account 
)f the rebellion"; "local self-government with im- 
partial suffrage"; "the supremacy of the civil over 
he military authority"; the protection of the habeas 
corpus; "a thorough reform of the civil service," to 
vhich end " it is imperatively required that no Presi- 
lent shall be a candidate for reelection"; the main- 
enance of the public credit; a speedy return to specie 
'ayments; and an end " to further grants of land to 
ailroads or other corporations." 
The extraordinary plank in this reform platform 



420 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

was the obvious straddle in regard to the tariff: 
" Recognizing that there are in our midst honest but 
irreconcilable differences of opinion with regard to the 
respective systems of protection and free trade, we 
remit the discussion of the subject to the people in 
their congressional districts and the decision of Con- 
gress thereon, wholly free from executive interfer- 
ence or dictation." 

This was an admirable declaration of principles. 
It would have been more impressive had it not been 
that some of its most commendable paragraphs were 
duplicated in the Republican platform adopted at 
Philadelphia on June 5 and 6, when Grant was re- 
nominated with great enthusiasm, and by acclama- 
tion. The Republicans favored a reform of the civil 
service system " by laws which shall abolish the evils 
of patronage and make honesty, efficiency, and fidel- 
ity the essential qualifications for public positions 
without practically creating a life-tenure of office. 
They opposed " further grants of the public lands tc 
corporations and monopolies"; declared that rev 
enue, " except so much as may be derived from a tax 
upon tobacco and liquors, should be raised by dutie 
upon importations, the details of which should be sc 
adjusted as to aid in securing remunerative wages tc 
labor and promote the industries, prosperity, anc 
growth of the whole country." 









THE GREELEY EPISODE 421 

His own party at Philadelphia was so thoroughly 
united behind Grant that the only suggestion of di- 
vision was in the nomination for Vice-President. Col- 
fax would doubtless have been named again had he 
not once withdrawn and then changed his mind after 
Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, had been brought 
forward as a candidate. While Speaker of the House 
in Johnson's time and for a while Vice-President 
with Grant, he had stood well in general esteem, but 
of late he had incurred the distrust of the represent- 
ative newspaper correspondents at Washington, a 
body as quick then as their successors now in detect- 
ing false notes in our public men. Their efforts more 
than any other one thing gave Wilson the nomina- 
tion; a choice of special significance because Wilson's 
colleague, Sumner, only a few days before, in the 
speech of May 31, had portrayed Grant in riotous 
violence of color as a military usurper debauching 
his office with an unholy zest which any Roman 
Emperor might have envied him. The Democrats at 
Baltimore, on July 9, endorsed Greeley, thus com- 
pleting an incongruous picture; for they could not 
have picked another man so radically at odds with 
every political theory which they held. His only 
point of sympathy with either convention was dis- 
content with Grant — no unusual attitude with him; 
for he had been an unsparing critic of every Presi- 



422 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

dent for thirty years, no matter whether his own 
party or the opposition happened to be in power. 

Greeley really never had a chance of election from 
the day he was nominated, but so eager was the 
campaign against Grant that for a time some even of 
the most sagacious of the seasoned political observers 
were in doubt. Sumner's assault of May 31 furnished 
a text for hardened orators and writers of the opposi- 
tion. 

" Not only are Constitution and law disregarded," 
cried Sumner, "but the presidential office itself is 
treated as little more than a plaything and a per- 
quisite — when not the former, then the latter. Here 
the details are ample; showing how from the begin- 
ning this exalted trust has dropped to be a personal 
indulgence, where palace cars, fast horses, and sea- 
side loiterings figure more than duties; how personal 
aims and objects have been more prominent than the 
public interests; . . . how in the same spirit office has 
been conferred upon those from whom he had re- 
ceived gifts or benefits, thus making the country 
repay his personal obligations; how personal devo- 
tion to himself rather than public or party service 
has been made the standard of favor; how the vast 
appointing power conferred by the Constitution for 
the general welfare has been employed at his will 
to promote his schemes, to reward his friends, to 1 



THE GREELEY EPISODE 423 

punish his opponents, and to advance his election to 
a second term; how all these assumptions have ma- 
tured in a personal government, semi-military in 
character and breathing the military spirit, being 
a species of Csesarism or pcrsonalism, abhorrent to 
republican institutions, where subservience to the 
President is the supreme law. 

"... I protest against him as radically unfit for 
the presidential office, being essentially military in 
nature, without experience in civil life, without apti- 
tude for civil duties, and without knowledge of re- 
publican institutions." 

Thus "Csesarism" became the cry against the 
most diffident and unassuming soldier of his genera- 
tion, one who signalized his first night at the White 
House by dispensing with the squad of soldiers de- 
tailed there as a night guard and ordering away from 
Washington all the troops on duty there at the time 
of his inauguration. " I was trying last night," said 
Matthew H. Carpenter replying to Sumner's tirade, 
"to recall a single instance if in conversation in re- 
gard to the late war I had heard General Grant al- 
lude to himself, and I could not. I have heard him 
speak in the most glowing terms of his comrades in 
arms. I have heard him speak of the exploits of 
Sherman. I have heard him allude to what was done 
by Logan, McPherson, and many other officers of 



424 ULYSSES S. GRAXT 

the Union army. I never heard him say, speaking 
of a battle, 'at such a juncture I thought I would do 
so and so,' or, ' I ordered a battalion this way or 
that,' or, ' I turned the scale by such a maneuver.' 
I never heard him allude to himself in connection 
with the war. I believe you might go to the White 
House and live with him and converse about the 
war day after day, and you never would know from 
anything he said that he was in the war at all." 

Such is the uniform testimony of those who knew 
him best. It is true that his companionships were 
not all over-nice; that instead of spending his sum- 
mers in Washington he spent them at the seashore, 
as has been the habit of almost every President since 
his day; that he liked to drive fast horses as when a 
boy on his father's place; that he accepted presents 
indiscriminately as a thing of course; that he had 
relatives in the public service; but if these were faults 
deserving censure, they were faults of judgment, not 
of malign intent, and history will weigh them lightly. 

Grant was keenly sensitive to the attacks upon 
him, but he never had the slightest doubt of his suc- 
cess, though the most experienced political observ- 
ers had their blue days. George W. Childs tells how 
during the campaign Wilson, who had just made 
a tour of the country, came to his house in Phila- 
delphia greatly depressed. " I went to see General 



THE GREELEY EPISODE 425 

Grant and I told him about this feeling particularly 
as coming from Senator Wilson. The General said 
nothing, but he sent for a map of the United States. 
He laid the map down on the table and went over it 
with a pencil and said, ' We will carry this State, that 
State, and that State ; until he nearly covered the 
whole United States. It occurred to me he might as 
well put them all in." He wrote to Washburne in 
August that even if Greeley remained in the field 
till November, he would not carry a single Northern 
State. 

His foresight was justified. The only States Gree- 
ley carried were Maryland, Georgia, Missouri, and 
Kentucky. Grant received 286 electoral votes out 
of 349. His popular vote was 3,597,132, an increase 
over his vote in 1868 of 484,299. 

It was a cruel thing for Greeley. He who had 
rioted all his life in searing Presidents and candidates 
cringed now when he felt his own soul pressed 
against the iron. The Scriptural admonition, that he 
who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword, 
was never more convincingly exemplified. "I was 
the worst beaten man who ever ran for high office," 
he wrote Colonel Tappan, " and I have been assailed 
so bitterly that I hardly knew whether I was running 
for President or the Penitentiary. In the darkest 
hour my suffering wife left me, none too soon, for she 



42G ULYSSES S. GRANT 

had suffered too deeply and too long. I laid her in the 
ground with hard, dry eyes. Well, I am used up; I 
cannot see before me. I have slept little for weeks, 
and my eyes are still hard to close, while they soon 
open again." Before the Electoral College met he 
died broken in heart and mind. 

But Grant's great personal triumph had its taste 
of wormwood too; for he had been through slander 
and vituperation such as seldom comes to public men. 
How it had eaten into him became plain to his 
countrymen a few months later when they read the 
closing words of his second inaugural: — 

" I did not ask for place or position, and was en- 
tirely without influence or the acquaintance of per- 
sons of influence, but was resolved to perform my 
part in a struggle threatening the very existence of 
the nation. I performed a conscientious duty, with- 
out asking promotion or command, and without a 
revengeful feeling toward any section or individual. 

"Notwithstanding this, throughout the war, and 
from my candidacy for my present office in 1868 to 
the close of the last presidential campaign, I have 
been the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever 
equaled in political history, which to-day I feel that 
I can afford to disregard in view of your verdict, 
which I gratefully accept as my vindication." 






CHAPTER XL 

CREDIT MOBILIER — THE BACK PAY GRAB — THE 
SANBORN CONTRACTS 

As we look back upon Grant's early years as Presi- 
dent, we see that he was criticized more for the man- 
ner than the matter of his deeds. The result in 1872 
showed clearly that the conservative forces of the 
country retained their faith in him. While Greeley 
had great crowds to hear him speak, — so great as 
for a time to frighten old Republican campaigners, 
■ — the outcome demonstrated that they were drawn 
by curiosity to see and hear a man who had been 
writing to them many years. The "sober second 
thought" which he invoked brought voters to the 
polls for his opponent. He was himself submerged 
in the great "tidal wave" on which his visionary 
helpers set such store. Grant won because, however 
much his methods might be questioned, men felt that 
in the fundamental qualities then needed he was 
sound. He had sustained the country's credit in 
finance, had greatly added to America's prestige 
abroad, and had shown firmness in the execution of 
the laws both North and South, a trait which led 
strong men of all political complexions to believe in 



428 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

him. He had been guilty of two faults which fairly 
merited reproof. One was a weakness for unworthy 
friends, on whom he showered responsible positions 
without regard to their experience or capacity and 
who too often played on his good faith in furthering 
their aims; the other was the practice, which he car- 
ried to a greater length than any of his predecessors, 
of interfering with congressional affairs. Of these 
faults the first was personal to him and transitory; the 
other, in the hands of a more crafty President, might 
well become an evil packed with peril; for the grow- 
ing ease with which our recent Presidents usurp the 
functions of the legislative branch threatens the very 
fundamentals of our Government. There could be no 
handier tool for one who had designs upon our liber- 
ties than a subservient Congress. With Grant the 
tendency was less alarming than it might be with 
others, more artful in the ways of politics; for Grant 
was not a demagogue; he never dreamed of such a 
thing as playing with his office for popular applause 
to hold himself in power. He acted always with 
a definite and patriotic aim, though often erring 
through his unfamiliarity with the machinery of civil 
government. He drove straight at his goal without 
regard to legal technicalities, and cut across lots with 
sublime indifference to signs forbidding trespass. 
While he was gratefully accepting the verdict 



CREDIT MOBILIER 429 

of the country on his first Administration, freshly 
gathered clouds were hanging over him. The Con- 
gress just then coming to an end was to be notable in 
its disclosure of two scandals — the Credit Mobilier 
and the "Back Pay Steal," in one of which its only 
office was to mete out justice, though both besmirched 
the party in control, in spite of evidence that Demo- 
crats should share responsibility for whatever guilt 
there was. Both were symbolic of the temper of the 
hour, and symptomatic of conditions by no means 
limited to Washington. "My own public life has 
been a very brief and insignificant one," said George 
F. Hoar about that time, "extending little beyond 
the duration of a single term of senatorial office; but 
in that brief period I have seen five judges of a high 
court of the United States driven from office by 
threats of impeachment for corruption or maladmin- 
istration. I have heard the taunt, from friendliest 
lips, that when the United States presented herself 
in the East to take part with the civilized world in 
generous competition in the arts of life, the only 
product of her institutions in which she surpassed all 
others without question was her corruption. I have 
seen, . . . the political administration of her chief 
city become a disgrace and a byword throughout the 
world. . . . When the greatest railroad of the world, 
binding together the continent and uniting the two 



430 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

great seas, was finished, I have seen our national tri- 
umph and exultation turned to bitterness and shame. 
... I have heard in highest places the shameless 
doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office 
that the true way by which power should be gained 
in the Republic is to bribe the people with offices 
created for their service." 

Thus marshaled, it presents a sorry record; but 
it would be absurd to charge it up to Grant or his 
Administration. The period just following the war 
was one of rude upheaval and of shattered standards. 
It cannot fairly be compared with more quiescent 
times. It was Grant's fortune to have fallen on it. 
Another in his place would hardly have done bet- 
ter; a weaker President might have been over- 
whelmed. 

And in spite of Hoar it would be hard to name a 
country with equal opportunities where corruption 
was then less prevalent than in our own. The scan- 
dals of the day emblazoned by political assault were 
uncouth in comparison with finer faults in less dis- 
torted times, but they had precedents in earlier ad- 
ministrations and have been rivaled since. With all 
his classic phrase and fine ideals Hoar often was the 
victim of his own hyperbole. Like Sumner he was a 
dogmatic partisan even in a noble cause, and those 
who knew him best were well aware that in his eyes 



CREDIT MOBILIER 431 

the things he greatly disapproved were monstrous, 
while "all his geese were swans." 

In the midst of the campaign the "New York Sun" 
had sprung a charge of bribery in connection with 
the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, for 
which Oakes Ames, a Congressman from Massachu- 
setts, a forceful and far-seeing business man, had 
been responsible. It was asserted that Ames had 
distributed among influential Congressmen and Sen- 
ators shares of stock in the Credit Mobilier. This 
was a Pennsylvania company, the unused franchise 
of which had been acquired by the managers of the 
Union Pacific, that they might thus secure the con- 
tract for the building of the road. The device which 
Ames and his associates adopted was an ingenious 
adaptation of methods then prevailing in the con- 
struction of private lines. 

It was not feasible at that time to secure sub- 
scriptions to the authorized capital stock in cash as 
was required by the statutes and as might have been 
done later. If Ames had not come forward with his 
credit, the enterprise would probably have fallen 
through; and the "spanning of the continent" would 
have been delayed for years. But through the aid of 
the Credit Mobilier, the stockholders in which were 
almost identical with the stockholders in the Union 
Pacific, the road was opened in 1869. Whatever the 



432 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

benefits, this was an evasion of the law providing 
that the stock should be paid for in full in money, 
when as a fact it went to men "who paid for it at 
not more than thirty cents on the dollar in road- 
making." From the viewpoint of Ames the arrange- 
ment with the Credit Mobilier was wise and neces- 
sary as well as profitable, for otherwise the work 
could not have been done. At the time when it was 
undertaken in 1865-66, he did not dare ask Con- 
gress to amend the charter, lest in the crush of Re- 
construction legislation, permission would be indefi- 
nitely delayed. 

Ames had been a member of the House since 1863, 
and from that vantage had watched the interests of 
the road. Washburne, of Illinois, "the watch-dog of 
the Treasury," had shown intermittent symptoms of 
demanding an investigation of the road's affairs. 
Ames wanted nothing further in the way of legisla- 
tion, but he cannily conceived that friendliness among 
the leading men in Congress might be a handy asset. I 
At his suggestion, in the fall of 1867, three hundred ' 
and forty-three shares of the Credit Mobilier were 
transferred to him as trustee. "I shall put these," 
he wrote to an associate, "where they will do the 
most good to us. I am here on the spot and can 
better judge where they should go." Whereupon he 
entered into contracts with leading Senators and 



CREDIT MOBILIER 433 

Representatives to sell them stock at par with inter- 
est from the first day of the previous July. One hun- 
dred and sixty shares were thus contracted for. Large 
dividends were already due upon the stock and it 
was worth no less than double par. Some bought their 
shares outright, while Ames agreed to carry others. 

This was the ground of charges exploited in the 
closing days of the campaign. The names of Senators 
and Representatives were given, based on a list made 
out by Ames before the distribution of the stock and 
disclosed that summer in a suit before a Pennsylvania 
court. They were a score of the most influential men 
in Congress, among them Colfax, Conkling, Garfield, 
Blaine, and Wilson. When Congress met a few weeks 
after the election, Blaine, then Speaker, took the 
floor and asked for an investigation. Two commit- 
tees were appointed — one headed by Luke Poland, 
of Vermont, to investigate the charges against mem- 
bers of the House, the other headed by Wilson, of 
Indiana, and George F. Hoar to inquire into the man- 
agement of the affairs of the Union Pacific and the 
Credit Mobilier. The result was a complete exonera- 
tion of most of those whom Ames had on his list. 
Some, like Blaine, Conkling, and Boutwell, had re- 
fused the stock. Others had given it back when they 
discovered there were to be suspicious profits. Only 
those who, during the campaign or later, had pre- 



of 

us 



434 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

varicated in wholesale denials, though guiltless 
corrupt intent, were held in fault. Colfax, for his 
prevarication and for questionable transactions re- 
vealed in the inquiry, was driven out of public life. 
Patterson, of New Hampshire, was recommended by 
the Senate Committee for expulsion, but his term 
came to an end before the Senate was prepared to act. 
Ames and James Brooks, a New York Democratic 
member, a government director of the road who was 
implicated with him, were recommended for expul- 
sion from the House. Brooks died before his case wasi 
reached. The House censured Ames, and he too diec 
within a month, the victim of a broken heart. Unti 
the scandal broke, he had not thought of the trans 
action as anything except a public service in keeping 
with the habit of the times, for which he should be 
given praise, not blame: "The same thing," he ex 
plained to the committee, "as going into a business 
community and interesting the leading business meD 
by giving them shares." He never dreamed of co: 
rupting members of Congress in any way; "they were 
all friends of the road and my friends. If you want 
bribe a man you want to bribe one who is opposed tc 1 
you, not to bribe one who is your friend. ... I nevei 
made a promise to or got one from any member o 
Congress in my life, and I would not dare to atteinpl 
it." His final statement, read in the House before the 



THE BACK PAY GRAB 435 

vote of censure, merits a record in the history of the 
time: "I have risked reputation, fortune, everything 
in an enterprise of incalculable benefit to the Govern- 
ment from which the capital of the world shrank. . . . 
I have had friends, some of them in official life, with 
whom I have been willing to share advantageous 
opportunities of investment. ... I have kept to the 
truth through good and evil report; denying nothing, 
concealing nothing, reserving nothing. Who will say 
that I alone am to be offered up a sacrifice to appease 
a public clamor or expiate the sins of others?" 

The revelations and the disrepute which followed 
:hem mark the beginning of a change in public con- 
science, which thenceforth was alive to wrong in 
nethods hitherto unblamed. They had no rightful 
rearing on Grant's Administration, as the transac- 
ions were all before his time. 

The Congress, which had done so well in handling 
he Credit Mobilier affair, stirred public indignation 
a its dying hours by the enactment of the "Salary 
Jrab," providing for an increase in salaries of Sen- 
tors and Representatives and the higher officers of 
be Government. The salary of the President was 
aised from $25,000 to $50,000 a year, that of Sen- 
tors and Representatives from $5000 to $7500. 
'here was an increase in the pay of the Vice-Presi- 
it, of the members of the Cabinet, and of the Jus- 



436 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

tices of the Supreme Court. These advances could 
not properly be criticized; for they were innocent and 
necessary, and should not have been delayed so long; 
but there was a provision that the increased salaries 
of Senators and Representatives should date from 
the beginning of the present Congress, so that each 
would be entitled to receive $5000 in addition to what 
he had been already paid — a retroactive arrange- 
ment which roused the people to a fierce storm of 
protest. It was depicted as a conspiracy to loot the 
Treasury, and those who voted for it were held up 
to public scorn. 

Democrats and Republicans had joined in its sup- 
port; one party was as guilty as the other, but as the 
Congress was Republican, that party had to bear the 
blame. The appropriation bill containing the obnox- 
ious clause was not enacted till the day before ad- 
journment, so that Grant could not refuse to sign the: 
bill without compelling a special session of the ncwl> 
chosen Congress, solely to make the necessary appro- 
priations for the continuance of an essential govern- 
mental function. He afterwards urged Congress tc 
give the Executive power to veto portions of appro 
priation bills without vetoing the whole — a reforn 
which has been often advocated since without result 

So violent was the outcry against the "Back Pa; 
Steal" that many Senators and Representative 



THE BACK PAY GRAB 437 

turned back into the Treasury the back pay which 
had been voted them, and one of the first acts of the 
new Congress which met in December, 1873, was to 
repeal the law except as it applied to the President 
and Justices of the Supreme Court. The issue figured 
largely in the next congressional election and was 
in part responsible for the Republican defeat. Its 
shadow lay on Congress for over thirty years, and not 
until the Roosevelt Administration did any member 
dare propose the salary increase which all knew to be 
right, resorting rather to manipulation of their pay 
by petty subterfuge in separate allowances for mile- 
age, clerk hire, and stationery, in timorous deference 
to a public feeling which did not exist. 

No one has ever told why Grant as President took 
up with Butler, whom as Lieutenant-General he had 
sent home from City Point and who, in "Butler's 
Book" years later, smeared Grant's war record with 
a filthy brush. It may have been because of his dis- 
like for Sumner, whose Massachusetts friends de- 
tested Butler's ways, or it may have been his inbred 
trait of standing in a fight by any one who seemed to 
him unfairly handled; but under all, we may sur- 
mise Butler's frank brutality of method, which per- 
haps appealed to him more strongly than the finer 
Brahmin touch. He always clung to those with whom 
he felt at home. The Massachusetts patronage he 



438 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

gave to Butler much to the general disgust. His 
choice of Simmons, "the young Christian Soldier," 
a Methodist class leader and Butler's henchman, for 
Collector of the Port of Boston, aroused resentment 
in the State and stirred to protest men like Sumner, 
Pierce, Whittief, and Holmes, all bitterly opposed to 
Butler's strong ambition to be Governor. Six New 
England Senators voted against Simmons, only one 
for confirmation. The Hoar brothers tried to induce 
Grant to withdraw the nomination; but Grant was 
obdurate. 

"Butler says he has a hold on you," said Judge 
Hoar, as he sat beside the President; and Rhodes, to 
whom this story came direct, relates that "Grant set 
his teeth, then drew down his jaw, and without chang- 
ing countenance looked Hoar straight in the eye, but 
said not a word. A long and painful silence ensued 
and Hoar went away." George F. Hoar in his "Au- 
tobiography" tells how he broached the Simmons 
topic while walking with the President by Lafayette 
Square. Grant quietly replied that to withdraw the 
nomination would do injustice to the young man 
The conversation continued in a friendly vein unti 
they turned the corner by Sumner's house, whei 
Grant's whole manner changed, and shaking lii; 
closed fist he said, "I shall not withdraw the nomina 
tion. That man who lives up there has abused me ii 




GRANT IN HIS SECOND TERM 
Photograph by Brady 

From the collection »t Frederick Hill Meserve 



THE SANBORN CONTRACTS 439 

a way which I have never suffered from any other 
man living!" This was in the winter of 1873, only a 
few weeks before Sumner's sudden end. 

The scandal of the Sanborn contracts grew out of 
Butler's influence with the Administration. William 
A. Richardson, who had been Assistant Secretary of 
the Treasury under Boutwell and who succeeded 
Boutwell when the latter became a Senator, came 
from Lowell, Butler's town. Richardson had no ad- 
ministrative service save in the Washington depart- 
ments. It was of him that George F. Hoar remarked, 
when asked about his Massachusetts record, "his 
reputation is strictly national." In 1872 Congress 
had repealed the dangerous law by which informers 
received a moiety of the recoveries from delinquent 
payers of internal revenue taxes, but a clause had 
been smuggled into an appropriation bill empowering 
the Secretary of the Treasury " to employ not more 
than three persons to assist the proper officers of the 
Government in discovering and collecting any money 
belonging to the United States whenever the same 
shall be withheld." Under this clause, Richardson, 
first as Assistant Secretary, afterwards as Secretary of 
the Treasury, made contracts with John D. Sanborn, 
a Boston friend of Butler's, already in the Govern- 
ment's employ as special agent for the Treasury, to 
collect taxes which were said to have been evaded by 



440 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

distillers, railroad companies, legatees, and others. 
By successive amendments to his contract, Sanborn 
induced the Treasury officials to let him gather in his 
net several thousand individuals and almost every 
railroad company in the United States, and to wink 
at fraudulent swearing to delinquencies. 

Under this contract $427,000 was collected, from 
which Sanborn received his moiety of $213,500. Of 
his share Sanborn testified that $156,000 was spent 
in hiring men to help him carry on the work, and 
most of this, it has been intimated, went to those who 
were engaged in the advancement of Butler's polit- 
ical designs. A congressional committee in 1874 found 
that a large percentage of the revenue collected was 
not a proper subject for contract under the law and 
would have been collected by the Internal Revenue 
Bureau in ordinary course; that many of the trans- 
actions were fraudulent, and that the Commissioner 
of Internal Revenue had been studiously ignored 
throughout. They agreed unanimously to report a 
resolution that the House had no confidence in Rich- 
ardson and demanded his removal. 

When Grant got word of this he sent for individual 
members of the committee and urged them to with- 
hold the resolution, with the understanding that the 
Secretary should resign and be taken care of in some 
other branch of service. As no one intimated that 



THE SANBORN CONTRACTS 441 

Richardson had profited by the arrangement and 
the real complaint against him was for negligence, 
the committee accepted Grant's proposal. Richard- 
son was made a justice of the Court of Claims, and 
Benjamin H. Bristow, a Kentucky lawyer who had 
made a record for effectiveness as United States At- 
torney, was appointed Secretary in his place. 



CHAPTER XLI 

VETO OF THE INFLATION BILL — THE RESUMPTION 
ACT 

For more than two years after the Supreme Court's 
reversal of its Legal Tender decision there was a 
period of seemingly unexampled prosperity. Busi- 
ness boomed; new railroads shot out through the 
Western country to gather up the grain for which 
Europe waited with outstretched hands; others 
pierced the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania and 
the border States. In the four years from 1869 to 
1872 the railroad mileage of the United States in- 
creased over twenty -four thousand miles — more 
than three times the average annual increase during 
the years from 1865 to 1868. All this meant a tremen- 
dous demand for iron and steel, a great expansion of 
shipping on the Great Lakes. Workshops and mills 
were run at full capacity; labor was in demand; wages 
were high; the tide of immigration was at flood. New 
issues of railway bonds were frequent, at high rates of 
interest; and they were widely distributed among 
people like clergymen, school teachers, and others of 
meager pay, who eagerly welcomed the unusual re- 
turns upon their small investments. 



VETO OF THE INFLATION BILL 443 

Many of these railway bonds, notably those of the 
Northern Pacific, were floated by Jay Cooke & Co., 
who, ever since their great success in handling the 
Government bond issues of the Civil War, had stood 
in the popular imagination as the house of Morgan 
later stood for so many years, the representative 
banking institution of the United States. Besides the 
legitimate business advancement, there were thou- 
sands of wildcat schemes. 

Every one was busy about something; every one 
had money; the world was looking up; the Vanderbilts 
and other men, who for years had been doing the 
biggest things in the biggest way, were carrying on 
their constructive schemes with sublime confidence 
in the future. They saw no clouds ahead; why should 
the average citizen who had faith in their experience? 
Then in the late summer of 1873, a few months after 
Grant had entered on his second term, money began 
to tighten even more than usual for that season of the 
year, when it was needed for the movement of the 
crops. There were other indications which might 
well have been taken as warnings that the boom had 
gone too far. And finally on September 18, 1873, the 
country was stunned by the announcement that Jay 
Cooke & Co. had failed. 

The props were knocked from under the flimsy 
structure of prosperity and it crumbled overnight. 



4-14 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Bank after bank went to the wall in all parts of the 
United States. The stock exchanges remained closed 
for eight days; greenbacks and national bank notes 
were hoarded; clearing-house certificates were issued 
for the first time in the history of panics; every con- 
ceivable device was resorted to for luring money back 
into circulation. The country was stricken with in- 
dustrial paralysis. Grant did not see "good times" 
again while he was President. 

At the height of the panic the frightened financiers 
of New York cried to Washington for help. Three 
days after the failure of Jay Cooke & Co., Grant came 
over to New York with Richardson, the Secretary of 
the Treasury, and was besieged at the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel by the business leaders of the city. "I hap- 
pened in New York on that Sunday," said Morton, 
of Indiana, "and saw the crowds of bankers, brokers, 
capitalists, merchants, manufacturers, and railroad 
men, who throughout that day thronged the halls, 
corridors, and parlors of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, be- 
seeching the President to increase the currency by 
every means in his power, and declaring that unless 
the Government came to the rescue nothing could 
save the country from bankruptcy and ruin." 

Two measures of relief were at Grant's hand. 
Before McCulloch was stopped by Congress he had 
retired and canceled $44,000,000 out of $400,000,000 



VETO OF THE INFLATION BILL 445 

greenbacks authorized by law, leaving in circulation 
$356,000,000. Boutwell at times had reissued these 
notes in small amounts to meet the current expenses 
of the Government and had retired them again as the 
need passed. Grant now had it in his power to reissue 
these notes in the financial emergency. Some of the 
biggest men in the Street begged him to do it. 

But he refused thus to inflate the currency in order 
to ease the money market. At best it would have 
been a temporary and fictitious relief and probably 
illegal, though that irregularity would doubtless have 
been overlooked in so great a crisis. There were other 
surplus greenbacks in the Treasury, however, and he 
directed the Secretary to use these to buy bonds, thus 
restoring to the savings banks $13,000,000 of cur- 
rency, which, while it did not go directly into circula- 
tion for the benefit of Wall Street, was far-reaching 
in its moral effect. 

Congress meeting in December, 1873, found the 
country in financial depths looking to Washington 
for relief. There were few Senators or Representa- 
tives without a remedy, fresh from home. The cry 
for inflation, which had been blatant many years, 
now gained in volume. 

Grant called attention in his message to the falling- 
off of revenues " owing to the general panic now pre- 
vailing." It was the duty of Congress to provide 



446 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

"wise and well-considered legislation." "My own 
judgment is that however much individuals may have 
suffered, one long step has been taken toward specie 
payments, and we can never have permanent pros- 
perity until a specie basis can be reached and main- 
tained, until our exports, exclusive of gold, pay for 
our imports, interest due abroad, and other specie 
obligations, or so nearly so as to leave an appreciable 
accumulation of the precious metals in the country 
from the products of our mines. ... To increase our 
exports sufficient currency is required to keep all the 
industries of the country employed. Without this, 
national as well as individual bankruptcy must ensue. 
Undue inflation, on the other hand, while it might 
give temporary relief, would only lead to inflation of 
prices, the impossibility of competing in our own 
markets for the products of home skill and labor, and 
repeated renewals of present experiences. Elasticity 
to our circulating medium, therefore, and just enough 
of it to transact the legitimate business of the country 
and to keep all industries employed, is what is most 
to be desired. The exact medium is specie, the recog- 
nized medium of exchange the world over. That ob- 
tained, we shall have a currency of an exact degree of 
elasticity. If there be too much of it for the legiti- 
mate purposes of trade and commerce, it will flow 
out of the country. If too little, the reverse will result. 



VETO OF THE INFLATION BILL 447 

To hold what we have and to appreciate our currency 
to that standard is the problem deserving of the most 
serious consideration of Congress." 

John Sherman was chairman of the Finance Com- 
mittee of the Senate; and under his sound guidance 
early in December the majority of the committee 
reported a resolution looking to the resumption of 
specie payments. Ferry, of Michigan, offered a reso- 
lution looking to inflation. Morton and Logan were 
eager advocates of cheaper money. Thurman called 
these three "the paper money trinity." Their de- 
mands ranged from the issue of $100,000,000 in 
greenbacks, which Ferry had in mind, to the reissue 
of the entire amount retired by McCulloch, which 
was Morton's plan. This latter would have brought 
the amount outstanding to $400,000,000, but it would 
have necessitated the actual issue of only $18,000,000; 
for without justification in law, Richardson had been 
busy ever since the panic in inflation on his own 
account to make up for falling revenues, and to 
provide for current disbursements. McCulloch had 
retired $44,000,000, and at the time of the Septem- 
ber panic in 1873 the total amount of greenbacks 
outstanding was $356,000,000. Richardson at con- 
venient intervals since that time had put out, by 
the middle of January, 1874, a total of $26,000,000 
for the payment of current expenses. 



448 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

There was a decided difference of opinion about the 
legality of Richardson's performance, but the imme- 
diate question before Congress was whether to au- 
thorize the issue of $18,000,000 more, while silently 
assenting to what he had done. It was a question 
of principle rather than of amount. "If now," said 
Sherman, "in this time of temporary panic, we yield 
one single inch to the desire for paper money in this 
country, we shall pass the Rubicon, and there will be 
no power in Congress to check the issue. If you want 
$40,000,000 now, how easy will it be to get $40,000,- 
000 again ! . . . Will there not always be men in debt? 
Will not always men with bright hopes embark too 
far on the treacherous sea of credit? Will there not 
always be a demand made upon you for an increase? " 

The debate covering a wide range lasted for four 
months. Sherman's committee reported a bill fixing 
the maximum amount of greenbacks at $382,000,000, 
where Richardson had left it. This was amended to 
provide for a maximum of $400,000,000, thus legaliz- 
ing Richardson's issue and authorizing $18,000,000 
more. In this form it passed the Senate and House 
by ample margins and on April 4, 1874, went to the 
President. 

Now comes one of the most dramatic and credit- 
able incidents in Grant's career. With the passage of 
the inflation bill the country settled down to the 



VETO OF THE INFLATION BILL 449 

expectation that it would become a law. There was 
reason for this belief. While Grant's public and pri- 
vate utterances hitherto had been consistently on the 
side of financial stability, there were passages both 
in his private and public papers not inconsistent with 
a moderate expansion of the circulating medium, and 
he had tacitly assented to the irregularities of Bout- 
well and Richardson even though he may not have 
approved them in advance. Morton and Logan were 
his stanch political supporters. They had sustained 
him when he had been most bitterly assailed. But 
here was an occasion where he fully realized the 
responsibility of his position of command. 

It would have been easy to say nothing and sign 
the bill; still easier to let the bill become a law with- 
out his signature. In either case he would have little 
criticism. Whatever blame there was would fall on 
Congress. 

Grant never thought of shirking the responsibility. 
He first expected to approve the bill and actually 
wrote a message telling why: but when he came to 
read his own production, he could not honestly en- 
dorse the arguments. He tore up his first message, 
wrote another, and on the 22d of April astonished the 
country with a veto. 

"The only time I ever deliberately resolved to do 
an expedient thing for party reasons, against my own 



450 ULYSSES S. GRAXT 

judgment," he later said, "was on the occasion of 
the expansion or inflation bill. I never was so pressed 
in my life to do anything as to sign that bill — never. 
It was represented to me that the veto would destroy 
the Republican Party in the West; that the West and 
South would combine and take the country, and 
agree upon some even worse plan of finance, some 
plan that would mean repudiation. Morton, Logan, 
and other men, friends whom I respected, were elo- 
quent in presenting this view. I thought at last I 
would try and save the party, and at the same time 
the credit of the nation, from the evils of the bill. I 
resolved to write a message, embodying my own rea- 
soning and some of the arguments that had been 
given me, to show that the bill, as passed, need not 
mean expansion or inflation and that it need not 
affect the country's credit. The message was intended 
to soothe the East and satisfy the foreign holders of 
the bonds. I wrote the message with great care and 
put in every argument I could call up to show that 
the bill was harmless and would not accomplish what 
its friends expected from it. When I finished my 
wonderful message which was to do so much good to 
the party and country, I read it over and said to my- 
self: 'What is the good of all this? You do not believe 
it. You know it is not true.' Throwing it aside I re- 
solved to do what I believed to be right, veto the 



VETO OF THE INFLATION BILL 451 

bill ! I could not stand my own arguments. While I 
was in this mood — and it was an anxious time with 
me, so anxious that I could not sleep at night, with 
me a most unusual circumstance — the ten days were 
passing in which the President must sign or veto a 
bill. On the ninth day I resolved inflexibly to veto 
the bill and let the storm come." 1 

Grant wrote his veto with his own hand, as was 
generally the case with his important messages. It 
was a sturdy and inspiring paper. He declared his 
unalterable opposition to any inflation of the currency 
as "a departure from true principles of finance, na- 
tional interest, national obligations to creditors, con- 
gressional promises, party pledges (on the part of 
both political parties), and of personal views and 
promises made by me in 'every annual message sent 
to Congress and in each inaugural address." It was 
the turning-point in the financial policy of the 
United States. If Grant had done no other praise- 
worthy thing in his eight years of office, this in itself 
would have given him rank among our great execu- 
tives. It fixed the place of the United States among 
the financial powers of the world. 

But something still remained for him to do; for 
though inflation had been dealt a deadly blow, addi- 
tional legislation was required to bring about a cur- 
1 Young, vol. ii, p. 153. 



452 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

rency based unmistakably upon the monetary stand- 
ards of the world. In 1874 the country was ready 
for a party change. Hard times, the record made by 
Congress, Credit Mobilier, the "Back Pay Grab," 
and scandals like the Sanborn contracts, had cul- 
minated in a storm of disapproval which broke in 
the election of a Democratic House. The two-thirds 
Republican majority of the Forty-fourth Congress 
was almost reversed, and for the first time since 1861, 
Senate and House would be of differing political 
complexion. Whatever legislation looking to the re- 
sumption of specie payments the Administration 
had in mind must be enacted while a Congress in 
sympathy with this policy was still in power; for 
sound finance had no place in the Democratic creed. 
When Congress met in December, 1874, for its 
last short session, Grant in his message brought re- 
sumption boldly to the front, pressing his argument 
with earnestness and with convincing force. He dwelt 
upon the national need which had devised a cur- 
rency impossible to keep at par with the recognized 
currency of the civilized world, urged that a foreign 
indebtedness, contracted in good faith by borrower 
and lender, should be paid in coin, and according to 
the bond agreed upon when the debt was contracted 
— gold or its equivalent. "The good faith of the 
Government cannot be violated toward creditors 



THE RESUMPTION ACT 453 

without national disgrace." In his judgment the 
first step toward the encouragement of American 
commerce was " to secure a currency of fixed, stable 
value; a currency good wherever civilization reigns; 
one which, if it becomes superabundant with one 
people, will find a market with some other; a cur- 
rency which has as its basis the labor necessary to 
produce it, which will give to it its value. Gold and 
silver are now the recognized medium of exchange 
the civilized world over, and to this we should return 
with the least practicable delay. ... I believe firmly 
that there can be no prosperous and permanent re- 
vival of business and industries until a policy is 
adopted — with legislation to carry it out — looking 
to a return to a specie basis. ... I believe it is in the 
power of Congress at this session to devise such legis- 
lation as will renew confidence, revive all the indus- 
tries, start us on a career of prosperity to last for 
many years, and to save the credit of the nation and 
the people." 

He suggested measures which seemed to him abso- 
lutely necessary to a return to specie payments. "The 
Legal Tender clause to the law authorizing the issue 
of currency by the National Government should be 
repealed, to take effect as to all contracts entered 
into after a day fixed in the repealing act. . . . Pro- 
vision should be made by which the Secretary of the 



454 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Treasury can obtain gold as it may become necessary 
from time to time, from the date when specie resump- 
tion commences. To this should be added a revenue 
sufficiently in excess of expenses to insure an accumu- 
lation of gold in the Treasury to sustain permanent 
redemption. . . . With resumption, free banking may 
be authorized with safety, giving the same full pro- 
tection to bill-holders which they have under existing 
laws. Indeed, I regard free banking as essential. It 
would give proper elasticity to the currency." And 
pressing home his plea he urged: "I commend this 
subject to your careful consideration, believing that 
a favorable solution is attainable, and if reached by 
this Congress that the present and future generations 
will ever gratefully remember it as their deliverer 
from a thralldom of evil and disgrace." 

Congress w r as quick in its response. John Sherman, 
chairman of the Committee on Finance at the first 
party caucus, moved a committee to harmonize the 
various diverging views of the majority and formu- 
late a bill. He was made chairman. By mutual con- 
cessions a bill was shaped, the vital section of which 
provided that on January 1, 1879, the Government 
should begin the redemption of greenbacks in coin; 
and, to make possible this resumption of specie pay- 
ments, authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to 
use the surplus revenue and to sell bonds for the 



THE RESUMPTION ACT 455 

purpose of accumulating gold. The bill also pro- 
vided for free banking, for the withdrawal of green- 
backs as fast as national bank notes were issued in 
the proportion of $80 to $100 until the greenbacks 
were reduced to $300,000,000; for subsidiary silver 
coins to take the place of the paper fractional cur- 
rency. 

The bill promptly passed both Senate and House, 
and on January 14, 1875, Grant made it law, sig- 
nalizing his approval in a message congratulating 
Congress, urging further steps to make the law effec- 
tive through the increase of revenue, and suggesting 
other helpful legislation. It fell to Sherman as Secre- 
tary of the Treasury under Hayes to carry out the 
law with whose enactment he had so much to do, 
and thus complete a chapter in finance of which all 
good Americans may rightfully be proud. 



CHAPTER XLII 

A SOLID SOUTH IN THE MAKING 

One cannot review the story of the South during 
these years without a feeling of deep melancholy. We 
have seen how in the flood of negro suffrage the 
States of the Black Belt had been misgoverned, and 
we have had a dark recital of the extravagance, dis- 
honesty, and ignorance which laid a heavy hand upon 
a proud though conquered people. There are few in- 
stances in history of such complete misapprehension 
of a human problem by those entrusted with its set- 
tlement. The North, befooled by myths about the 
negro, failed utterly to comprehend the mental atti- 
tude of those who after exercising feudal power found 
themselves suddenly subordinate to former slaves, a 
race still looked upon by them as of a hopelessly in- 
ferior type. The hurried grant of universal suffrage 
was an offense for which both North and South have 
paid a grievous penalty. In throwing off a hateful 
burden, the people of the South, as if pursuant to a 
law of nature, have let all other problems wait upon 
the vital problem of local government. It would be 
hard to overestimate the injury done the nation as a 
whole by the existence of the "Solid South," where 



A SOLID SOUTH IN THE MAKING 457 

there is found the finest essence of the Anglo-Saxon 
race, yet where there is no adequate debate of timely 
themes because the negro question overshadows all. 
That it may now be a fantastic fear is quite beside 
the point. The dread of negro domination has become 
ingrained through memory of actual experience in 
Reconstruction times. The South itself must bear 
the cruel load of its solidity; but the North, which 
furnished the excuse unwittingly, must share the 
expiation because it shares the blame. 

The part Grant had to play in his endeavor to do 
justice in the South is one he neither relished nor de- 
served. He did not favor negro suffrage at the start, 
and acquiesced in it as a necessity only when through 
others' folly it seemed unavoidable. But when cor- 
ruption and malfeasance led to bloodshed his soldier's 
instinct led him to enforce the law. His use of federal 
troops, subject to hot denunciation at the time, has 
been thrown up against him ever since; as if it were 
the cause of violence and not intended as the cure. 
The opposition charged that he essayed to play the 
role of Csesar, that he aimed to keep himself in office 
by military force, till men forgot that all the federal 
soldiers in the South could hardly have policed a 
single town. It took four years of fighting and two 
million men to put down insurrection in a territory 
which he was charged with trying to enslave with 



458 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

four thousand soldiers scattered through a dozen 
States. That was the highest number in the South 
under arms at any single time, embracing the garri- 
sons of all the forts between the Delaware and the 
Gulf of Mexico. 1 It would have been a great thing 
for the South, in Grant's opinion, if some of the 
streams of emigration from New England and the 
Middle States had been diverted in that direction 
instead of toward Iowa and Kansas. In the light of 
history and his own experience we must examine with 
respect Grant's matured views upon the problem 
which pressed upon him heavily so long: — 

"Looking back over the whole policy of Recon- 
struction, it seems to me that the wisest thing would 
have been to have continued for some time the mili- 
tary rule. Sensible Southern men see now that there 
was no government so frugal, so just, and fair as what 
they had under our generals. That would have en- 
abled the Southern people to pull themselves together 
and repair material losses. . . . Military rule would 
have been just to all, to the negro who wanted free- 
dom, the white man who wanted protection, the 
Northern man who wanted Union. As State after 

1 The whole number of troops in the States of Louisiana, Ala- 
bama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Maryland, and Virginia 
at the time of the election was 4082. This embraces the garrisons 
of all the forts from the Delaware to the Gulf of Mexico! (Rich- 
ardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vn, p. 298.) 



A SOLID SOUTH IN THE MAKING 459 

State showed willingness to come into the Union, not 
on their own terms, but upon ours, I would have 
admitted them. This would have made universal 
suffrage unnecessary, and I think a mistake was 
made about suffrage. It was unjust to the negro to 
throw upon him the responsibilities of citizenship, 
and expect him to be on even terms with his white 
neighbor. It was unjust to the North. 

"In giving the South negro suffrage, we have given 
the old slaveholders forty votes in the Electoral Col- 
lege. They keep those votes, but disfranchise the 
negroes. That is one of the gravest mistakes in the 
policy of Reconstruction. ... I am clear now that 
it would have been better for the North to have 
postponed suffrage, Reconstruction, State Govern- 
ments, for ten years, and held the South in a ter- 
ritorial condition. ... It would have avoided the 
scandals of the State Governments, saved money, 
and enabled the Northern merchants, farmers, and 
laboring men to reorganize society in the South. But 
we made our scheme, and must do what we can with 
it. Suffrage once given can never be taken away and 
all that remains for us now is to make good that gift 
by protecting those who have received it." * 

Such elections as were held in 1873 disclosed a 
Democratic trend, due partly to the panic, partly to 
1 Young, p. 362. 



4G0 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

other things, and as election day approached in 1874, 
the Democratic trend throughout the North became 
intensified. In sympathy with the general tendency 
there was a recurrence in several Southern States 
of anti-negro demonstrations, which Grant described 
in his December message. 1 

In Alabama, "men of intelligence and property" 

1 " I regret to say that with preparations for the late election 
decided indications appeared in some localities in the Southern 
States of a determination, by acts of violence and intimidation, to 
deprive citizens of the freedom of the ballot because of their polit- 
ical opinions. Bands of men, masked and armed, made their ap- 
pearance; White Leagues and other societies were formed; large 
quantities of arms and ammunition were imported and distributed 
to these organizations; military drills, with menacing demonstra- 
tions, were held, and with all these murders enough were commit- 
ted to spread terror among those whose political action was to be 
suppressed, if possible, by these intolerant and criminal proceed- 
ings. I understand that the Fifteenth Amendment to the Consti- 
tution was made to prevent this and a like state of things, and the 
Act of May 31, 1870, with amendments, was passed to enforce its 
provisions, the object of both being to guarantee to all citizens 
the right to vote and to protect them in the free enjoyment of 
that right. Enjoined by the Constitution ' to take care that the 
laws be faithfully executed,' and convinced by undoubted evi- 
dence that violations of said act had been committed and that a 
widespread and flagrant disregard of it was contemplated, the 
proper officers were instructed to prosecute the offenders, and 
troops were stationed at convenient points to aid these officers, 
if necessary, in the performance of their official duties. Complaints 
are made of this interference by federal authority; but if said 
amendment and act do not provide for such interference under 
the circumstances as above stated, then they are without mean- 
ing, force, or effect, and the whole scheme of colored enfranchise- 
ment is worse than mockery and little better than a crime." (Rich- 
ardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vn, p. 297.) 



A SOLID SOUTH IN THE MAKING 461 

had determined to redeem the State. And there were 
reports which gained wide credence in the North 
of "riots, murderings, assassinations and torturings" 
more common than at any time since Lee's surrender. 
These stories were discredited by newspaper writers, 
but Grant under authority of the Enforcement Acts 
sent 679 soldiers to Alabama to insure a fair election. 
Yet in face of this display of force which emboldened 
the negroes to vote the Republican ticket, a Dem- 
ocratic Governor and Legislature were elected by 
comfortable majorities. A select committee of the 
House of Representatives investigated the election, 
and the Republican members reported that it was 
carried by "fraud, violence, proscription, intimida- 
tion, and murder." The Democrats admitted that 
there were riots in several places on election day, 
in which the negroes got the worst of it, but they 
maintained that in these riots the negroes were ag- 
gressors. 

In Arkansas there had been in 1872 an armed dis- 
pute between the followers of Brooks and those of 
Baxter — rival Republican candidates for Governor. 
Grant recognized Baxter, the more conservative of 
the two, as the lawful executive. Baxter's Legisla- 
ture passed a bill calling a constitutional convention. 
The people endorsed this action. The constitution 
framed by this convention was ratified on October 



162 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

15, 1874, by popular vote and on the same day A. H. 
Garland, Democrat, afterward Attorney-General of 
the United States, was elected Governor with a Dem- 
ocratic Legislature and four Democratic Congress- 
men. The President took up the Arkansas problem 
from a new viewpoint. On February 8, 1875, he sent 
a special message to Congress, expressing the opin- 
ion that Brooks, instead of Baxter, had been legally 
elected Governor in 1872; that he had been illegally 
deprived of the possession of the office since that 
time; that "in 1874 the constitution of the State was 
by violence, intimidation, and revolutionary proceed- 
ings overthrown and a new constitution adopted and 
a new State Government established." He asserted 
that these proceedings, if permitted to stand, practi- 
cally ignored all rights of minorities in all the States. 
". . .1 earnestly ask that Congress will take definite 
action in this matter to relieve the Executive from 
acting upon questions which should be decided by 
the legislative branch of the Government." 

Grant's thought was that all proceedings under the 
illegal Baxter regime should be annulled, in which 
event Brooks would be restored to the office which 
was rightfully his under the old constitution till 
January, 1877. 

A committee of the House, headed by Luke P. 
Poland, reported a resolution that "in the judgment 



A SOLID SOUTH IN THE MAKING 463 

of this House no interference with the existing gov- 
ernment in Arkansas by any department of the Gov- 
ernment of the United States is advisable," and the 
resolution was adopted by the overwhelming vote of 
150 to 81, in a House overwhelmingly Republican. 
Poland in supporting his resolution asserted that the 
change from one constitution to another was as 
peaceful a change as ever took place in his own State 
of Vermont; that under the Garland Government 
everything was as peaceful and quiet as in Massa- 
chusetts. 

In February, 1875, a Civil Rights Bill was en- 
acted, not quite on Sumner's lines, aimed to secure 
to negroes equal rights in inns, public conveyances, 
theaters, and other places of amusement and to pre- 
vent their disqualification for services as jurors. It 
was a wanton irritant, futile in results; for eight years 
later, in 1883, the Supreme Court declared its chief 
provisions unconstitutional. 

In Mississippi there was a condition different from 
either Arkansas or Alabama. The Legislature, in con- 
trol of negroes and carpet-baggers, had laid heavy 
taxes for the support of an ambitious system of 
public schools which roused the indignation of the 
Ku-Klux Klan and led to persecution of the negroes 
and Northern women who came there to teach. 
Adelbert Ames, who had seen gallant service in the 



4G4 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Army of the James, was Governor. He was an earn- 
est and consistent champion of the negro. In Yicks- 
burg, where over half the population were negroes, 
the whites, exasperated by high taxes, forced Crosby, 
the Republican sheriff, to resign. Ames told the sher- 
iff to hold his office, and Crosby called upon the ne- 
groes of the county to sustain him. There were riots 
in which twenty-nine negroes and two whites were 
killed. Sheridan, who was in command at New Or- 
leans, sent soldiers to Vicksburg. Crosby was rein- 
stated and peace restored. 

In 1875 the "men of intelligence and property" 
organized to carry the election and control the Leg- 
islature. There were fifteen thousand more negro 
voters in the State than whites. The problem was to 
persuade the negroes to vote the Democratic ticket 
or stay away from the polls. "Peaceful persuasion" 
was the programme, but, unfortunately, Mississippi 
had the shotgun habits of other frontier communi- 
ties; every one carried either a bowie knife or a 
pistol. Negro meetings were broken up by armed 
white bands. A few whites and many negroes were 
killed; negroes were shot down in cold blood by way 
of retribution for the killing of the whites. Ames 
telegraphed to Grant, asking him to proclaim mar- 
tial law. But Grant refused. "The whole public," 
Grant telegraphed to Attorney-General Pierrepont 



A SOLID SOUTH IN THE MAKING 465 

from Long Branch, "are tired out with these an- 
nual autumnal outbreaks in the South, and the great 
majority are ready now to condemn any interference 
on the part of the Government. I heartily wish that 
peace and good order may be restored without issu- 
ing the proclamation, but if the proclamation must 
be issued I shall instruct the commander of the 
forces to have no child's play; the laws will be exe- 
cuted and the peace will be maintained in every 
street and highway of the United States." 

Ames, full of pugnacity, organized the state mili- 
tia, mostly negroes, and armed them with Springfield 
breech-loaders. The whites formed military com- 
panies of their own, and bloodshed would have been 
general had it not been for a "peace agreement" 
brought about through the conciliatory efforts of an 
agent of the Department of Justice. Ames disbanded 
his militia and the Democratic bands dispersed, but 
while the menacing civil warfare was averted, intimi- 
dation proved equally effective. 

The "Mississippi Plan," as it was called, consisted 
in an organized conspiracy to frighten the negroes 
away from the polls. Salutes with cannon were fired 
on the public roads; "To let the niggers know that 
there was going to be a fair election," Private John 
Allen said. Horsemen with ropes tied to the pommels 
of their saddles would ride up to a polling-place where 



4CG ULYSSES S. GRANT 

black voters were waiting to cast their ballots. "How 
soon will the polls be opened?" one asked another. 
"In about fifteen minutes," was the reply. "Then the 
hanging will not begin for about fifteen minutes," 
was the response. Not a word to the blacks, but be- 
fore the fifteen minutes were up, they had all dis- 
appeared. The Democrats carried the election by 
nearly 31,000, had a majority of 93 in the Legis- 
lature, elected most of the county officers, and 4 out 
of 6 members of Congress. 

Grant wrote on July 26, 1876: "Mississippi is 
governed to-day by officials chosen through fraud and 
violence such as would scarcely be accredited to sav- 
ages, much less to a civilized and Christian people." 
Ames was impeached by the new Legislature, but 
the Legislature subsequently dismissed the charges 
and Ames resigned. " He bore himself," wrote Roger 
A. Pryor, "like a brave and honorable gentleman." 

Of all cases that of Louisiana was the hardest. 
The struggle there was marked by differences be- 
tween Republican factions as well as by Democratic 
resistance to carpet-bag rule. Henry C. Warmotlu 
heading one faction, disclosed conservative tenden- 
cies. Opposed to him were S. B. Packard, United 
States Marshal, and "William Pitt Kellogg, who had 
been a lawyer in Illinois, Colonel of an Illinois regi- 
ment in the Civil War, and whom Lincoln had made 



A SOLID SOUTH IN THE MAKING 467 

Collector of Customs at New Orleans in 1865. War- 
moth in 1872 had joined the conservative Democrats 
in supporting a fusion state ticket headed by John 
McEnery as candidate for Governor. Kellogg was 
the Republican candidate. Both sides claimed the 
election of Governor and Legislature. Under the 
Louisiana law a returning board composed of the 
Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, the Secretary 
of State, and two others specifically named had the 
power of throwing out the returns from any voting- 
places which in their judgment had been carried by 
violence, intimidation, bribery, or corrupt influence. 
Warmoth, who had the returns in his own hands, 
reconstructed the returning board; the new board 
announced the election of McEnery and enough 
fusion members of the Legislature to make a major- 
ity. The Republicans got up a returning board of 
their own and declared Kellogg with a Republican 
Legislature elected. The United States Circuit Judge 
issued an order late at night directing the United 
States Marshal to take possession of the State House. 
Packard was not only sheriff, but chairman of the 
State Committee. By authority of the Attorney- 
General he had the United States troops at his dis- 
posal, and with them he seized and held the State 
House. L'nder his protection, Kellogg assumed the 
governorship. 



468 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Grant sent a special message, February 25, 1873, 
arguing in favor of the Kellogg Government. He 
said that if Congress took no action he should recog- 
nize and support it. 

Turbulence followed in the trail of recognition. 
There was a massacre at Colfax on the Red River, 
three hundred and fifty miles from New Orleans, 
within two months, white men riding into the town 
and demanding that the negroes lay down their arms 
and surrender the court-house. The court-house in 
which sixty or seventy negroes had taken refuge was 
fired; as the negroes rushed out, some were killed 
and some were captured. Those captured were merci- 
lessly shot down. In all, the negroes killed at Colfax 
were fifty-nine, whites only two. "This deed was 
without palliation or justification," wrote George F. 
Hoar, who as chairman of a congressional committee 
made a report. "It was deliberate, barbarous, cold- 
blooded murder. It will stand like the Massacre of 
Glencoe or St. Bartholomew, a foul blot on the page 
of history," — hyperbole again, perhaps, but the 
bloody deed was black enough to have a marked 
effect upon the feeling of the North, which was begin- 
ning at that time to turn against the men who were 
exploiting negro suffrage for their own political gain. 
A little over a year later, at Coushatta, a little farther 
up the river, there was another massacre, equally 



A SOLID SOUTH IN THE MAKING 469 

foul. After an assault upon the blacks by mem- 
bers of the White League, with killing on both sides, 
six white Republican office-holders, lately from the 
North, gave themselves up to the White League, who 
had demanded that they resign. While they were 
being taken under guard to Shreveport, they were 
set on by another band and murdered in cold blood. 

Grant having withdrawn the federal troops, except 
a few who were still garrisoned in New Orleans, the 
white conservatives, on September 14, 1874, started 
an insurrection in that city, barricaded the streets, 
fought with the colored metropolitan police, and 
seized the State House, where their leaders started 
to reorganize the Government. Grant at once sent 
troops, under whose protection the Kellogg Govern- 
ment was set up again. The armed force sustaining 
the conservatives was broken up. 

In the election for members of the Legislature in 
1874, the conservatives on the face of the returns 
elected a majority of 29. Kellogg's returning board, 
after weeks of thought, threw out conservatives on 
charges of intimidation and fraud till they found that 
53 conservatives and 53 radicals had been elected. 
With regard to five seats they rendered no decision. 
When the Legislature met in January, 1875, there 
were scenes of wild disorder. The conservatives 
seized control, elected a speaker, and seated their 



470 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

five contestants for the vacant seats. The Republi- 
cans withdrew in order to break a quorum. 

General de Trobriand, armed with an order from 
Kellogg to clear the hall of all persons not returned 
as legal members by the returning board, appeared 
with a file of soldiers. With fixed bayonets the 
soldiers approached one by one each of the five 
members sitting in his place and forced him to leave 
the hall. The conservative Speaker and his party 
withdrew, the Republicans returned and organized 
as best they could. 

Sheridan, whom Grant had ordered to New Orleans, 
now assumed command. "I think," he telegraphed, 
"that the terrorization now existing in Louisiana, 
Mississippi, and Arkansas could be entirely removed 
and confidence and fair dealing established by the 
arrest and trial of the ringleaders of the armed White 
League. If Congress would pass a bill declaring them 
banditti they could be tried by a military commission. 
. . . It is possible that if the President would issue a 
proclamation declaring them banditti, no further 
action need be taken, except that which would de- 
volve upon me." 

Belknap, the Secretary of War, telegraphed Sheri- 
dan: "The President and all of us have full confidence 
and thoroughly approve your course. ... Be assured 
that the President and Cabinet confide in your wis 



A SOLID SOUTH IN THE MAKING 471 

dom and rest in the belief that all acts of yours have 
been and will be judicious." 

The opposition newspapers in the North and the 
anti-Administration band in the Senate flamed out 
against Sheridan, against de Trobriand, especially 
against Grant. "If this can be done in Louisiana," 
cried Schurz, "and if such things be sustained by 
Congress, how long will it be before it can be done in 
Massachusetts and Ohio? . . . How long before a 
general of the Army may sit in the chair you occupy, 
sir, to decide contested election cases, for the purpose 
of manufacturing a majority in the Senate? How 
long before a soldier may stalk into the National 
House of Representatives and, pointing to the 
Speaker's mace, say, 'Take away that bauble!'" 
Indignation meetings were held in Cooper Institute 
and Faneuil Hall. 

Charles Foster, William Walter Phelps, and Clark- 
son N. Potter, a congressional committee who had 
been in New Orleans to investigate the action of 
Kellogg's returning board, and who were there during 
the disturbances at the State House, united in a 
report "that the action of the returning board on the 
whole was arbitrary, unjust, and, in our opinion, 
illegal," and that this alone prevented the return of 
a conservative majority in the Legislature. They 
asserted that " the conviction has been general among 



472 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the whites since 1872 that the Kellogg Government 
was an usurpation." Another committee, consisting 
of George F. Hoar, William A. Wheeler, and William 
P. Frye, reported that intimidation had prevented 
"a full, free, and fair election" in 1874 and that Gen- 
eral de Trobriand's interference "alone prevented a 
scene of bloodshed." On their recommendation the 
" Wheeler Compromise " was accepted, giving a con- 
servative majority in the House; the Senate was 
Republican ; by resolution the Legislature agreed not 
to disturb the Kellogg Government. 

South Carolina for a moment shot a ray of light 
across the gloom. Daniel H. Chamberlain, a Massa- 
chusetts soldier, a lawyer, a graduate of Yale, with 
high ideals, Attorney-General from 1868 to 1S72, 
with fine courage set his face against misrule. He was 
elected Governor in 1874, succeeding the scoundrel 
Moses, who in his turn had followed the disreputable 
Scott. He vetoed numerous plunder bills, reformed 
the courts, and cut loose from the rogues. "My 
highest ambition," he said, "has been to make the as- 
cendancy of the Republican party in South Carolina 
compatible with the attainment and maintenance 
of as high and pure a tone in the administration of 
public affairs as can be exhibited in the proudest 
State of the South." In his two years as Governor 
he partially succeeded. But he was not omnipotent. 



CHAPTER XLIII 

THE WHISKEY RING — THE BELKNAP CASE — 
GRANT'S STEADFAST LOYALTY — THE CHIEF 
JUSTICESHIP 

"Grant is honest as Old Jack Taylor," Sherman 
wrote home from Vicksburg in reply to hints of deals 
with traders who swarmed the Union camps bar- 
tering their country for Mississippi cotton; and it is 
history that attacks on Grant all through the war 
originated with unscrupulous contractors whose crook- 
edness he had exposed, forbidding them to ply their 
wretched traffic in his jurisdiction. Yet he was fated 
in the White House to be a ready target for the press 
by reason of disclosures affecting men in whom he 
placed his trust. Our Civil War, like every other war 
in history, had left corruption in its trail, though dif- 
fering from most others in the rapidity with which 
men set themselves to cleaning out the thieves and 
the contemporaneous publicity of the disclosures. 
Many suspicious things which came to light while 
Grant was President would have occasioned little 
comment in other times or other countries. It is a 
lasting tribute to the spirit of the day that evildoers 
were so quickly brought to punishment, though at 



474 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the moment, the very triumph of reform cast on the 
period a cloud which history has not yet dispelled, 
for history, like politics, is ever true to form in over- 
emphasizing superficial faults at the expense of in- 
grained quality. 

Grant did not seek the easy fame which comes to 
the crusader; he had no mission to reform the ways of 
other men; he was so wholly human that he could 
never quite divorce his public functions from his pri- 
vate life. As President he kept about him those he 
liked, and while we may regret his taste in choice of 
some of his companions, we cannot blame the faith 
with which he clung to them. " Grant was the only 
man I ever knew," says one who was for eight years 
at his side, "upon whose promise you could safely go 
to sleep. He never failed to keep his word even in the 
smallest things. If once he pledged himself you could 
dismiss it from your mind, and travel round the 
world. It would be done." 1 This trait of constancy 
contributed to his success, but in conjunction with 
his childlike trust it was a dangerous thing, which 
brought him bitterness of soul. Experience did not 
seem to profit him. He had the unsuspecting chivalry 
of friendship; throughout his life his sympathy went 
out to those he thought the victims of injustice; 
though they might be at fault, his instinct was to 
» General C. C. Smffen. 



THE WHISKEY RING 475 

shield them from attack. In the grim chase of justice 
his heart ran with the fox, not with the hounds. 

Of all the men by whom he stood for good or bad, 
Babcock, his aide and secretary, brought him the 
greatest care, for Babcock had a genius for getting 
into scrapes, some doubtless innocent for all their 
ugliness. He was charged first with mercenary aims 
in San Domingo; but there was never any evidence 
that he was guilty there of anything but indifference 
to proprieties. The fact that he was then exonerated 
tied Grant more closely to him, as one who had been 
persecuted in a cause Grant had at heart. 

Babcock was charged with having had a hand in 
paving contracts when Alexander Shepard was Gov- 
ernor of the District, but could be blamed apparently 
for nothing worse than indiscretion. Shepard was 
ruthless in his methods; undoubtedly his friends made 
money out of real estate and contracts under his 
regime; but nothing short of ruthlessness could have 
wrought such miracles as he performed almost in a 
night while changing Washington from a straggling, 
ragged town of mud and huts into a Capital with spa- 
cious avenues consistent with the splendid plans of 
l'Enfant three quarters of a century before. The 
country rang with cries against "Boss" Shepard at 
the time, and Congress changed the form of govern- 
ment, creating a commission for the District in order 



476 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to get rid of him as Governor and eliminate the "Dis- 
trict Ring." Grant aroused resentment when he sent 
Shepard's nomination to the Senate as one of the 
Commissioners. Shepard, discredited and poor, be- 
took himself to Mexico, but when he came back, af- 
ter twenty years of exile, he was the hero of a civic 
demonstration. His statue now embellishes the Ave- 
nue which he restored. 

Babcock became the center of the scandal of the 
"Whiskey Ring," dragging the President himself into 
a compromising place. The story of the Whiskey 
Ring is an unhappy chapter of the time. Bristow, who 
succeeded Richardson as Secretary of the Treasury 
in June, 1874, had some experience as a prosecuting 
officer through having been a federal attorney, but 
he was little known outside Kentucky until he made 
his record in the Treasury as a minister of reform. 
There he found matters ready at his hand to test his 
quality and add to his repute. 

For years there had been frauds upon the revenue 
through a conspiracy of distillers and rectifiers in the 
whiskey-making centers of the Middle West, — St. 
Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee, — who, with the 
connivance of dishonest internal revenue officials, 
cheated the Treasury out of taxes due. The richest 
pickings were in Johnson's time, but it is said that 
during three years, under Grant, three times more 



THE WHISKEY RING 477 

whiskey was shipped from St. Louis alone than 
paid the tax, and that the Government in six years 
was defrauded out of revenue amounting to nearly 
$3,000,000. It had long been suspected that frauds 
were perpetrated on the revenue by the distillers; 
and with Grant's approval in the summer of 1874 
steps had been taken to put a stop to them, but with- 
out success; the service was so honeycombed with 
clerks participating in illegal profits of the ring that 
any move to interfere with the conspirators was 
promptly known to every one involved. It was not 
till G. W. Fishback, editor of the " St. Louis Demo- 
crat," gave to Bristow secret information and with 
Bristow's sanction set unofficial agencies to work, 
that it was possible to ferret out the methods of the 
ring without some guilty partner in the Treasury 
divulging what was going on. This word was confi- 
dentially conveyed to Bristow in February, 1875, and 
on the 10th of May, after a train of evidence had been 
laid skillfully, he lit the fuse. Simultaneous raids 
were made all over the United States. In St. Louis, 
Milwaukee, and Chicago, sixteen distilleries and six- 
teen rectifying establishments were seized, and fraud- 
ulent packages were found in almost every other 
town of any size. The thing at once had public noto- 
riety and for months thereafter newspapers spread 
the record of the revelations and the trials. Grant 



478 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

was well in touch with the inquiry and joined in the 
pursuit. 

Before long it was found that Babcock had been 
corresponding with the leaders of the ring, and there 
were intimations, not only that he shared the profits, 
but that he used this means of raising funds for 
Grant's election in 1872 and was preparing to finance 
a third term by the same device. Helping Dyer, the 
Government Attorney, in the preparation of the case, 
was John B. Henderson, the former Senator, one of 
Grant's most malignant critics. McDonald, the super- 
visor at St. Louis, who was convicted and jailed, says 
that Henderson asked him to plead guilty and be- 
come a witness for the Government (promising him 
immunity from punishment). Because of his devo- 
tion, he says, he refused to testify against Grant and 
Babcock and went to the penitentiary willingly in 
order to preserve Grant and the Nation from scandal. 1 
Barnard, a St. Louis banker, wrote to Grant, de- 
nouncing Henderson and Dyer, and urging that " the 
interest of the Government and your own past record 
should be protected by additional counsel ... re- 
gardless of the prospective influence of press, party, 

1 Rhodes, vol. vn, p. 187. But McDonald's book, Secrets of the 
Great Whiskey Ring, which was issued as a campaign document in 
1880, is a mass of falsehoods, and while some of the statements may 
have been correct by accident, it is not safe to accept a single one 
of them as true. McDonald could not have written the book him- 
self. He was illiterate. 



THE WHISKEY RING 479 

or self-aggrandizement." The letter gave the names 
of many who should be called as witnesses and told 
of revenue officials who had been quoted as saying 
Grant could not give them up or Babcock would be 
lost. This letter came to Grant at Long Branch on 
July 29, and he at once referred it to the Secretary 
of the Treasury with an endorsement in his own 
hand: "... I forward this for information and to the 
end that if it throws any light upon new parties to 
summon as witnesses they may be brought out. Let 
no guilty man escape if it can be avoided. Be specially 
vigilant — or instruct those engaged in the prosecu- 
tion of fraud to be — against all who insinuate that 
they have high influence to protect — or to protect 
them. No personal consideration should stand in the 
way of performing a public duty." 

The ink was hardly dry on this historic note before 
conspiracies began to multiply within conspiracies. 
Those implicated in the frauds upon the revenue, in 
wriggling to escape, were glad for a pretense to drag 
the scandal to the White House door, in hope that 
this might bring to them immunity. Bristow, an 
honest and courageous man himself, had in his train 
a stream of flatterers exciting his political ambition, 
and the press began to talk about him as a candidate 
for President. Around Grant there revolved a multi- 
tude of satellites, continually whispering a third term 






480 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and poisoning his mind against the machinations of 
the friends of Bristow. Pervading the Administration 
was the venom of distrust. In August the investi- 
gators found a dispatch from Babcock addressed to 
an indicted officer, signed "Sylph," and reading, "I 
have succeeded. They will not go. I will write you." 
This was interpreted to mean that he had kept the 
ring informed about the Treasury's activities. Much 
was made of this dispatch till it was found to have 
no bearing on the frauds, though it suggested a com- 
panionship impure in other ways. 

A little later Grant, with Babcock, visited several 
Western cities, St. Louis with the rest, and before he 
started Bluford Wilson, Solicitor of the Treasury, 
wrote to Henderson reminding him of the importance 
of neglecting no precaution "to reach the bottom or 
top of the conspiracy," and advising that the defend- 
ants be placed under strict surveillance "for the next 
ten days or two weeks"; and Wilson later said: "I 
wrote that letter intending that General Babcock 
should be looked after. If he was in the ring, I in- 
tended to catch him if it was in my power. If he was 
not, I intended to demonstrate his innocence beyond 
the shadow of a doubt if it were possible to do so." 

The manner of this chase of Babcock angered 
Grant, who was convinced that a plot was hatching 
to besmirch himself. Two of the ring had been con- 



THE WHISKEY RING 481 

victed, and in December, on evidence which these 
trials divulged, Babcock was indicted in St. Louis 
"for conspiracy to defraud the revenue," a special 
military court of inquiry having previously been 
called at Babcock's request. Critics of the Adminis- 
tration declared that this court, which never sat to 
hear the case, was granted to forestall the civil suit. 
Henderson in the course of one of the trials had 
cried: "What right had the President to interfere 
with the honest discharge of the duties of a Secretary 
of the Treasury? None whatever ! Is it to continue in 
this country that because a man holds an office at the 
hands of another he is to become his slave?" — and 
much more to the same purport. When this was read 
by Grant, he promptly ordered Henderson's dismis- 
sal, a step which, coming the day after Babcock's 
indictment, caused a wild outcry in the press, though 
Henderson was replaced with James O. Brodhead, 
the Democratic head of the St. Louis bar, at least as 
good a man as Henderson had been. The change was 
first talked over in the Cabinet, and every member, 
including Bristow, voted for Henderson's removal, 
regarding his performance "as an outrage upon pro- 
fessional propriety." 

Grant was viciously attacked because with his ap- 
proval the Attorney-General sent a letter to all dis- 
trict attorneys to stop the wholesale granting of im- 



482 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

munities, which had been instigated by the Treasury 
to reach men "higher up." "Suggestions have been 
made," he wrote, "that quite too many guilty men 
are to go unpunished. ... I am determined as far as 
lies in my power to have these prosecutions so con- 
ducted that when they are over, the honest judgment 
of the honest men of the country — which is sure in 
the main to be just — will say that no one has been 
prosecuted from malice, and that no guilty one has 
been let off through favoritism, and that no guilty 
one who has been proved guilty or confessed himself 
guilty has been suffered to escape punishment." 1 

A copy of this letter fell into Babcock's hands and 
he gave it to the press. "They were trying to destroy 
me," he explained to the Attorney-General, "and I 
had a right to anything I could get hold of"; and 
Pierrepont testified before the House Committee, 

1 Out of all those indicted and as a result of several trials, only 
three of the St. Louis ring served a jail sentence. One of these was 
McDonald, who was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and 
was pardoned after serving two. Former Paymaster-General Cul- 
ver C. Sniff en, who was one of Grant's secretaries throughout both 
Administrations, and who has made a careful study of the records, 
says: " A surprising number of immunities from punishment were 
granted to confessed criminals. Out of forty-seven persons indicted 
in Chicago during October and November, 1875, criminal immunity 
was granted in advance of the time for trial in almost every instance, 
while up to August 4, 1876, but three of them had been given light 
jail sentences and representatives of the distillers were then in 
Washington claiming civil immunity. In St. Louis, out of fourteen 
distillers, thirteen pleaded guilty in one day and none received 
other than civil punishment, while the acknowledged organizer of 



THE WHISKEY RING 483 

"I heard the President say five or six times in the 
progress of the case, ' If Babcock is guilty there is no 
man who wants him so much proven guilty as I do, 
for it is the greatest piece of traitorism to me that a 
man could possibly practice.'" 

When Babcock's trial came off in February, Grant 
asked to be a witness, and at his request his deposi- 
tion was taken at the White House by the Chief Jus- 
tice of the United States, Bristow and Pierrepont 
present, with attorneys for Babcock and the Govern- 
ment. He swore that he had never seen anything in 
the conduct or talk of Babcock which indicated to 
his mind connection with the Whiskey Ring; that 
Babcock had evinced fidelity and integrity as regards 
the public interest, performed his duties as private 
secretary "to my entire satisfaction"; that "I have 
always had great confidence in his integrity and effi- 
ciency"; and that "I never had any information 
from Babcock or any one else indicating in any 
manner, directly or indirectly, that any funds for 
political purposes were being raised by any improper 

the ring escaped punishment altogether. The court stated in 
advance that any one who pleaded guilty would not be sentenced 
until all the cases had been disposed of except those who had 
absconded, and most of the cases were later dismissed. According 
to a statement given out by the Attorney-General and printed in 
the New York Herald, February 29, 1876, there had been at that 
time 253 indictments. Of these 40 distillers, 6 distillery employees, 
and 21 others had pleaded guilty. There had been 17 trials, result- 
ing in 13 convictions, 3 acquittals and 1 disagreement." 



481 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

methods." He swore that Babcoek never spoke to 
him about the charges against the Whiskey Ring, 
and had not sought to influence him in any way. 
He went with full detail into his own relation to the 
investigation; said that if Babcoek had been guilty 
of misconduct he would have known it. The un- 
precedented spectacle of the President proffering his 
testimony in a case like this, his boldness in coming 
forward to defend his secretary, his accepted hon- 
esty, had a far-reaching influence, and silenced all 
but the most raucous critics. Not through Grant's 
testimony, but through the absence of convincing 
evidence, Babcoek was speedily acquitted. 

The "New York Tribune," which up to that mo- 
ment had been vitriolic in its comments, declaring 
that a President with such a complete misconception 
of the nature and limitations of his authority "is 
better fitted to rule an Asiatic kingdom than a free 
American republic," now had to congratulate the 
country heartily on the result: "The indictment has 
been submitted to the severest legal tests. No one 
can complain that the court was biased in Genera] 
Babcock's favor, or that the prosecution was ineffi- 
cient, or that the jury were prepossessed. ... At the 
entrance of the White House, the scandal has been 
met and turned back." 1 

1 New York Tribune, February £o, 1876. 



THE WHISKEY RING 485 

Babcock was acquitted on February 24. When he 
returned to Washington he went as usual to his desk. 
Grant followed him, and the two were closeted for a 
long time. When Grant came out, his face was set in 
silence. A little later Babcock locked his desk and 
left the room. He never came back to the White 
House as a secretary, and thereafter occupied his 
other office blocks away as Superintendent of Public 
Buildings and Grounds. It has been said that Bab- 
cock for a time was restored to his old place. That 
is not true. His intimate relations with the President 
were not renewed. 1 

Nor did Grant forgive the men whom he believed 
had tried to bring the White House into the affair. 
Bristow to his mind was one of these. He had not 
liked the manner of Bristow's handling of the case, 
and in the progress of the investigation they had 
many differences. 2 Bristow was beset with enemies 

1 E. Rockwood Hoar, a hard-headed man and an acute judge 
of his fellows, knew Grant through and through and believed him 
strictly and thoroughly honest. " But, do you feel sure," he was 
asked, "that in all these suspicious transactions no money stuck 
to his fingers?" With a purposed anachronism to give emphasis to 
his quaint remark, he replied: " I would as soon think St. Paul had 
got some of the thirty pieces of silver." (Rhodes, vol. vn, p. 188.) 

2 " As for the President, those who know the most of the secret 
history of this move are freest to declare that in no instance did he 
do anything designed by him to protect the guilty or impede the 
course of justice. That his acts and his delays often accomplished 
both is now painfully apparent. 

" At the same time it is true that whenever the ring, by false 



486 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

who carried tales to Grant and Grant had critics who 
encouraged Bristow. The Secretary more than once 
resigned, but was induced by Grant to stay. And 
Grant once had made up his mind to ask for Bristow \s 
resignation. After Babcock's acquittal Bristow was 
summoned before the investigating committee of the 
Democratic House, looking for material to use in the 
political campaign, but he declined to testify, claim- 
ing that proceedings of the Cabinet were privileged. 
Grant released him promptly: "I beg to relieve you 
from all obligations of secrecy on this subject, and 
desire not only that you may answer all questions 
relating to it, but that all members of my Cabinet 
and ex-members of my Cabinet may also be called 
upon to testify in regard to the same matter." Grant 

representations, had developed serious Executive opposition to 
some feature of the prosecutions, or excited suspicion against the 
Secretary, the latter, until a late day, was always able to remove 
both, and disconcert the ring by a plain and courageous talk with 
the President. On these occasions General Grant always inclined 
to the right. But the constant recurrence of such explanations^ 
and the infamous character of the plottings which made them 
necessary, continually impeded the prosecutions and discouraged 
the Secretary. It is also true that on several occasions when he 
had decided to resign, the President insisted upon his remaining, 
and for a time thereafter the contingency of a resignation for such 
causes seemed to render the President alive to the situation. 

" Considering the nature and influence of the forces arrayed 
against the Secretary, and the facilities they enjoyed for constant 
access to the President, it is scarcely a matter of wonder that at 
times his eyes were blinded and his deepest prejudices aroused." 
(Henry V. Boynton in North American Review, October, 1876.) 



THE WHISKEY RING 487 

was angry, too, because the Treasury sought to indict 
Logan, against whom there was no evidence, and 
to discredit others of his friends who were supposed 
to be in favor of a third term. Four days after the 
Cincinnati Convention, Bristow walked over to the 
White House, met the President at the foot of the 
stairs leading to the Executive offices, took from his 
pocket an envelope and handed it to Grant, who went 
his way without a word, entered his buggy at the door 
and took his usual drive. It was Bristow's resignation. 
A few days later Grant asked Postmaster-General 
Jewell to resign. He had sided strongly with Bristow 
all the time, and had had other differences with his 
official chief. The next day James N. Tyner, the As- 
sistant Postmaster-General, was summoned to the 
White House. "Mr. Tyner," said the President, "I 
have decided to ask you for your resignation," — and 
paused. Tyner reddened to the neck and bowed sub- 
missively. "And appoint you Postmaster-General," 
continued Grant. 

The Democratic House elected in 1874 had set it- 
self to work as soon as possible to get political mate- 
rial for the campaign then near at hand, which prom- 
ised to be closely fought. Almost at once, when 
Congress met, the House began to poke around for 
scandal. Committees were soon raking every bureau 



488 ULYSSES S. GRAM" 

of administration for evidence of those Republican 
misdeeds concerning which the press had been so 
clamorous. 1 They had comparatively little time for 
ordinary legislation. After weeks of unrequited labor, 
one of the committees investigating expenditures in 
the War Department fell on the Belknap case. The 
Belknaps had been socially ambitious and the women 
of the family were extravagant. The Secretary had 
no money and his salary was small. His wife in trying 
to devise new means of income was told of the post 
traderships, which had for years been let by contract 
to favored bidders, and offered generous rewards to 
thrift. Belknap, who became Secretary after Raw- 
lins, had not been in office long when Mrs. Belknap, 
visiting the New York house of Caleb P. Marsh, sug- 
gested that Marsh apply for a post tradership and 
give to her a share of the emoluments. Marsh made 
application for a rich post at Fort Sill, in Indian 
Territory, and was told to see the incumbent Evans, 

1 " Members of both parties have been represented in every great 
fraud yet discovered in Washington. The old Indian Ring of the 
days when Democracy ruled eclipsed all later efforts of Republican 
thieves. The palmy days of the Whiskey Ring were in Andrew- 
Johnson's time; for then the spirit tax was higher. Credit Mobilier 
had its Democratic participators; so of Black Friday and Pacific 
Mail; so of the District Ring; so of land jobs; and so of the Mem- 
phis and El Paso swindle. It was even impossible for Republican 
rascals to shake off Democrats when they came to rob the black 
man's savings-bank." (Henry V. Boynton in Xorth American 
Review, October, 187G.) 



THE BELKNAP CASE 489 

who was then in Washington looking to keep the 
place. The two agreed that Marsh should not press 
for the position, but should receive from Evans as 
the price of his withdrawal $12,000 annually, to be 
paid him quarterly in advance. Payments began in 
1870, and as each arrived one half was sent to Mrs. 
Belknap. There was no certain evidence that Bel- 
knap knew about the deal. It was said in his defense 
that he supposed the money to be income on invest- 
ments, as his wife was understood to have some prop- 
erty before she married him. Mrs. Belknap died, and 
payments were continued as before, although they 
were reduced by half as Marsh's dividends from 
Evans were cut in two. In all, the Belknaps received 
$20,000. Heister Clymer, as chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Expenditures in the War Department, re- 
ported on March 2, 1876, that at "the very threshold 
of their investigation " the committee had found un- 
contradicted evidence of Belknap's malfeasance, and 
recommended that he be impeached of high crimes 
and misdemeanors while in office. The House at once 
adopted a resolution of impeachment by a unanimous 
vote. 

Clymer's report was not presented until three 
o'clock that afternoon, but by ten o'clock that morn- 
ing Belknap, anticipating what would happen, had 
resigned his place, and Grant immediately accepted 



490 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the resignation "with great regret." Proceedings in 
the Senate hung on till August, and conviction failed 
for lack of a two-thirds majority. Most of those who 
voted against conviction were said to have believed 
in Belknap's guilt, but as he was already separated 
from his office, doubted the Senate's jurisdiction in 
the case. Belknap took up his residence in Washing- 
ton, and though in disgrace and poverty, he retained 
his personal popularity until his death. There still 
lurks around the Capital a tale of knightly sacrifice 
to save a woman's name. 

When Cox resigned as Secretary of the Interior, 
because he thought the President did not sustain 
him in his fight against the politicians bent on spoils, 
Grant said the trouble was that Cox had made him- 
self impossible, because he thought himself of too 
great consequence. 1 Columbus Delano, who took the 
place, was an Ohio lawyer of good repute at home, but 
lacking in the quality to circumvent the schemers 
who from the establishment of the department have 
sought its exploitation for pecuniary gain. Indian 
rings and land rings reveled in his administration, 
much to the public scandal, and at last, discouraged 

1 " The trouble was that General Cox thought the Interior 
Department was the whole government, and that Cox was the 
Interior Department. I had to point out to him in very plain 
language that there were three controlling branches of the Govern- 
ment, and that I was the head of one of these and would like so to 
be considered by the Secretary of the Interior." (Garland, p. 427.) 



THE CHIEF JUSTICESHIP 491 

by his inability to handle his accumulating evils, he 
resigned. Chandler, of Michigan, had just been 
beaten for the Senate, and Grant gave him the place. 
Chandler did not stand well with the professional 
reformers, and they received the tidings with alarm. 
Some thought it meant the triumph of corruption, 
for Chandler, always forceful and direct, had bitterly 
denounced "reform" and treated its apostles with 
contempt. He was a Stalwart to the marrow, and a 
Republican of the unbending type, a sturdy Western 
pioneer, who had had a striking business success. He 
believed in spoils and patronage and all the ways of 
politics which men like Schurz and Godkin specially 
abhorred, but his administration stands as an exam- 
ple of effectiveness which none of his successors has 
surpassed. He drove the money-changers out of the 
department, squelched the rings, and cleaned the 
place where public plunder had intrenched itself for 
many years. He gave a new exemplification of prac- 
tical reform. 1 

Grant was one of the few Presidents to whom has 
fallen the impressive responsibility of selecting a 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 

1 Schurz in succeeding him was impelled to write: "I think I 
am expressing the general opinion of the country when I say you 
have succeeded in placing the Interior Department in far better 
condition than it has been in for years, and that the public is in- 
debted to you for the very energetic and successful work you have 
performed." (Life of Chandler, p. 355.) 



492 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

States. When the chance came to him upon the death 
of Chase in 1873, he went at it as if he were called 
upon to pick a chief of staff. It must be said that 
in this temper he did not differ much from other 
Presidents whose antecedents should have given 
them respect for the great functions of the court, 
but who for personal or party reasons have chosen 
justices without considering first of all preeminence 
on the bench or at the bar. The highest service done 
their country by Taft and Harrison was in the way 
of their upholding the noblest standards of the court. 
No poorer service can be done by any President than 
to lower that court's prestige; one who would con- 
sciously force on the bench a lawyer who, whether 
justly or unjustly had been charged with unprofes- 
sional practices, would thus prove his own unfitness 
for his place. 

Grant was a layman with no pretensions in the 
law, and so might be excused some lack of sym- 
pathy with its traditions. Yet his selections for the 
bench were on the whole of a high order. Stanton, 
Hoar, Bradley, Strong, and Hunt were thoroughly 
equipped in legal knowledge for the court, and all 
but Stanton had a fine judicial temper. Stanton 
was named because the Senate asked for his appoint- 
ment when he was at the point of death. Hoar, 
though an ideal judge at every point, was turned 



THE CHIEF JUSTICESHIP 493 

down by the Senate in a pet. In each case, though 
in different ways, the Senate made of lawyers had 
treated lightly the traditions of the court. Why then 
should Grant hold it in greater sanctity? 

His first choice fell on Conkling, his closest friend 
in politics, who had ability commensurate with the 
place and might have taken rank among the noted 
jurists of the time, not only as a lawyer, but in the 
dignity of bearing which marked him as a leader in his 
State and on the Senate floor. Conkling was lordly 
in his ways, and supercilious, which told against his 
popularity, a lover of good books who packed the 
classics in a capacious memory, an orator tremen- 
dously imposing in his way, whose speeches, carefully 
elaborated and rehearsed, have not survived the fame 
of their occasion. He was a Stalwart politician with 
no illusions or fine dreams, a firm believer in the doc- 
trine of the spoils, and a past master in its practice. 

He had, by his frank detestation of reformers and 
reform, roused the hostility of the independent press, 
and when word passed that Grant would like to have 
him as Chief Justice, a storm of censure fell upon 
Grant's head. Conkling refused the place because he 
much preferred the fray of politics. He was still 
young and had no wish to shrine himself upon the 
bench. Then Grant, for lack of something better 
close at hand, offered the place to George H. Wil- 



494 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

liams, his Attorney-General. Williams, who hailed 
from Oregon, had little reputation as a lawyer, and 
had acquired the sobriquet of "Landaulet" because 
his family made social calls in a department carriage 
at the Government's expense. The Bar Association 
of New York remonstrated against his confirmation, 
as he was "wanting in those qualifications of intel- 
lect, experience, and reputation which are indispen- 
sable to uphold the dignity of the highest national 
court." The Senate dallied with the nomination, 
which was withdrawn at Williams's request. 

Then Grant sent in the name of Caleb Cushing, a 
learned lawyer who had fame at the bar and in diplo- 
macy and who had been the leading counsel of the 
United States in the Geneva Arbitration. But with 
all his intellectual astuteness,* wide culture, and plaus- 
ibility, Cushing's political and professional record 
was at fault. He had been listed as a Copperhead at 
the beginning of the war, and his professional probity 
was seriously in question, though Grant did not know 
this when he sent in his name. Among right-thinking 
men he was condemned, as Howe and Hamlin wrote, 
" because he lacked principle." For this reason, the 
nomination would have been rejected if it had been 
kept before the Senate, but Grant's supporters spared 
him this rebuff by offering in evidence a letter which 
Cushing wrote in March, 18G1, to his "dear friend" 






THE CHIEF JUSTICESHIP 495 

Jefferson Davis to recommend another friend for an 
appointment in the Confederate Civil Service. Giv- 
ing this letter as an excuse, the Senate Republicans 
in caucus asked that the nomination be withdrawn, 
and this was done. Cushing's is almost the only case 
in the entire history of the court where the profes- 
sional integrity of a nominee to that tribunal has 
been in question. Even to have the question raised 
should be sufficient reason to disqualify; for confirma- 
tion by a partisan majority cannot remove the stain; 
and one who takes his place upon the bench in face 
of charges not disproved shows himself by that act 
alone to be unworthy of the gown. Grant tried 
again for Conkling, but without success, and then 
named Morrison It. Waite, a little-known Ohio law- 
yer, whose only national repute had come from serv- 
ice among the counsel before the Geneva Tribu- 
nal. Waite was a modest man who stood well at 
the Ohio bar. He was not open to objection. His 
fourteen years of service as Chief Justice reflected 
credit on the court and fully justified his choice. 



CHAPTER XLIV 

THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 

As the time drew near for choosing a new President, 
parties began to take account of stock. Grant, though 
the target for sustained abuse by the Democratic 
and the independent press, still stood high in the 
estimation of the people, and there was talk about 
another term. The faults of his Administration had 
been overemphasized, but the public was not fooled, 
though in the way of politics men looked for change. 
They had not been enamored of the Democratic 
House with which they had been saddled as the price 
of discontent. Its muck-raking propensities, its petty 
scramble for cheap spoils, its parade of party spawn 
like Doorkeeper Fitzjiugh, boasting that he was 
"biger than old Grant," had made it something of a 
stench and failed to whet the country's appetite for 
more. But industry was paralyzed and times were 
out of joint. 

Stalwart Republicans like Conkling, Cameron, and 
Logan felt that, while the party had lost ground, 
talk of a third term for Grant would keep the ranks 
intact. But Grant was tired of controversy and 
wanted to retire. Early in 1875 the Pennsylvania 






THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 497 

Republicans were ready to endorse him for another 
term, and the President of their convention wrote 
him so. He made up his mind at once, called a meet- 
ing of the Cabinet to tell them what he was going to 
do, and mailed personally a letter in reply declaring: 

"The idea that any man could elect himself Presi- 
dent, or even renominate himself, is preposterous. 
Any man can destroy his chances for an office, but 
none can force an election or even a nomination. I 
am not nor have I ever been a candidate for renom- 
ination. I would not accept a nomination if it were 
tendered, unless it should come under such circum- 
stances as to make it an imperative duty — circum- 
stances not likely to arise." 

The censorious said there was a string to this re- 
fusal, but it did the work. 1 Before the meeting of the 
National Republican Convention in June, 1876, the 
third-term talk had died away. 

Blaine, the most fascinating figure of the day, out 
of touch with the Administration group, was mar- 

1 So persistent did the pressure become as time went on that, 
when Congress came together in December, a resolution in the 
House, presented by the Democrats and supported by 77 out of 88 
Republicans, was passed as follows: " That, in the opinion of this 
House, the precedent established by Washington and other Presi- 
dents of the United States, in retiring from the presidential office 
after their second term, has become, by universal occurrence, a 
part of our republican system of government, and that any de- 
parture from this time-honored custom would be unwise, unpatri- 
otic, and fraught with peril to our free institutions." 



498 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

velously popular, but there were whispers that as 
Speaker he had been involved in questionable deals, 
and in spite of all he and his friends could say this 
led to his undoing. Conkling and Morton had their 
followers and each hoped for Grant's support, but 
he kept his hands off the convention. He had a secret 
notion that in case of a close struggle Fish was a likely 
compromise, and he wrote a letter to be used if Fish 
should have a chance. 1 Bristow was a strong favorite 
with the reformers. They could not stand with any 
one who stood with Grant, but they were equally at 
odds with Blaine. Hayes was the Ohio candidate — 
a man of unassuming merit with a record in the Civil 

1 " I took no part in the discussions antecedent to the Cincinnati 
Convention, because the candidates were friends, and any one, 
except Mr. Bristow, would have been satisfactory to me, would 
have had my heartiest support. Bristow I never would have sup- 
ported for reasons that I may give at some other time in a more 
formal manner than mere conversation. Mr. Blaine would have 
made a good President. ... I did not see any nomination for 
Blaine, Morton, or Conkling. Bristow was never a serious candi- 
date, never even a probability. Looking around for a dark horse, 
in my own mind I fixed on Fish. Bayard Taylor said to me in 
Berlin that the three greatest statesmen of this age were Cavour, 
Gortchakoff, and Bismarck. I told him I thought there were four, 
that the fourth was Fish, and that he was worthy to rank with the 
others. This was the estimate I formed of Fish after eight years of 
Cabinet service, in which every year increased him in my esteem. 
So I wrote a letter to be used at the proper time — after the 
chances of Blaine, Morton, and Conkling were exhausted — ex- 
pressing my belief that the nomination of Governor Fish would be 
a wise thing for the party. The time never came to use it. Fish 
never knew anything about this letter until after the whole con- 
vention was over." (Young, vol. n, pp. 273-75.) 



I 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 499 

War, who in 1874 had led the fight against inflation 
in his State, defeating "Fog Horn" Allen, Demo- 
cratic candidate for Governor, thus for the time 
eliminating that financial heresy from the Democratic 
creed. There were other "favorite sons." 

There is little doubt that Blaine would have been 
chosen but for a chain of circumstances which need 
not be detailed. The deadly enmity of Conkling and 
the dramatic series of disclosures skillfully staged to 
catch the public notice as the convention was about 
to meet make a rare chapter in the history of the 
time. Not even Conkling's hatred or the work of the 
machine could have defeated him had it not been for 
the pervasive dread that he might prove a vulnerable 
candidate. The elements opposed to Blaine at last 
combined on Hayes, and on the seventh ballot Hayes 
was nominated. No other name could have been 
found to cause so little disappointment among the 
friends of rival candidates, and when the Democrats 
a few days later named Tilden, who had been elected 
Governor of New York in 1874, there was a feeling 
that the lines were drawn for a respectable campaign. 
"There is very little to choose between the candi- 
dates," wrote Lowell, and many Liberal Republicans 
came back into the fold. l 

1 Henry Watterson has given us a charming picture of the 
Democratic candidate, who was his personal friend: — 

"To his familiars, Mr. Tilden was a dear old bachelor, who lived 



500 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

But the contest developed virulence. The Demo- 
crats were voluble against Republican misrule. "Re- 
form is necessary!" was their cry, and "Turn the 
Rascals out!" Their platform called for the repeal of 
the Resumption Act, but Tilden was regarded as a 
friend of sound finance. The Republicans, deprived 
of the inflation issue on which they counted, began to 
"wave the bloody shirt" and to point the finger at 
the "Rebel Brigadiers" who, through "bull-dozing" 
and intimidation, they said, were conspiring to return 
to national control by joining to a "Solid South" the 
slums of the great cities of the North. Tilden had 
made false income tax returns during the Civil War; 
he was the first of presidential candidates to "tap 
a bar'l" or employ a "literary bureau." Zachariah 

in a fine old mansion in Gramercy Park. Though sixty years of age 
he seemed in the prime of his manhood; a genial and overflowing 
scholar; a trained and earnest doctrinaire; a public-spirited, pa- 
triotic citizen, well known and highly esteemed, who had made 
fame and fortune at the bar, and had always been interested in 
public affairs. 

"He was a dreamer with a genius for business, a philosopher yet 
an organizer. He pursued the tenor of his life with measured tread. 
. . . His home life was a model of order and decorum, his house 
as unchallenged as a bishopric, its hospitality, t hough select, profuse 
and untiring. . . . He was a lover of books rather than music and 
art, but also of horses and dogs and out-of-door activity. His 
tastes were frugal, and their indulgence was sparing. He took his 
wine not plenteously, though he enjoyed it . . . and sipped his 
whiskey and water on occasion with a pleased composure, redolent 
of discursive talk. ... His judgment was believed to be infalli- 
ble." {Century, May, 1913.) 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 501 

Chandler was chairman of the committee in charge 
of the Republican campaign and William E. Chand- 
ler, who had been secretary in the two preceding 
campaigns, was now, as a member of the Committee 
from New Hampshire, specially assisting him — two 
brainy and courageous managers, who knew no senti- 
ment in politics except success, and who, while repre- 
sentative of different Republican schools, were both 
intensely loyal in the party faith. Abram S. Hewitt 
was the Democratic chairman, but Tilden was him- 
self a deft political manipulator and really handled 
the campaign. 

It looked on Election night as though the Demo- 
crats had won, and with two conspicuous exceptions, 
every newspaper in the United States made that 
announcement, basing this judgment on the fact that 
Tilden had carried New York, New Jersey, Connecti- 
cut, and Indiana, and the assumption that he had 
the "Solid South," which would have given him a 
safe majority. And now there comes a passage in our 
history hardly surpassed in fiction. 

William E. Chandler, who had gone home to vote, 
arrived at headquarters in the Fifth Avenue Hotel 
just before daylight to find the place deserted, the 
other officers of the committee having gone to bed 
convinced that Hayes had lost. He met there John 
C. Reid, news editor of the "New York Times," 



502 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

with information that the late returns bore indica- 
tions of possible Republican success, and by a process 
of swift calculation perceived that the result de- 
pended on the votes of Florida, Louisiana, South 
Carolina, Oregon, and California. He sent at once 
to party leaders in each State dispatches of which 
the following is typical: "Hayes is elected if we have 
carried South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. Can 
you hold your State? Answer immediately." 

Here began a controversy which put our form of 
government to a crucial test. Zachariah Chandler 
later in the morning endorsed the action of the 
younger Chandler, announcing that "if the dis- 
patches are correct, and he has no reason to doubt 
them, Governor Hayes is elected beyond a doubt," 
and a dispatch was sent broadcast which has become 
historic: "Hayes has 185 electoral votes and is 
elected." l 

1 " On election day in the afternoon I went from Concord to 
Boston and on to New York by night train, reaching the Fifth 
Avenue Hotel a little before complete daylight. Mr. Vilas at the 
clerk's desk told me that Tilden was elected. I said I could not 
believe it and went around to the committee room No. 1. There 
was no one there. In the hallway I met John C. Reid, of the 
New York Times, just arriving. He told me that if we had carried 
South Carolina and Florida, also one or two small far Western 
States, we had saved the election. We went into the committee 
room, I examined the various dispatches on the deserted desks and 
then went up to Senator Chandler's room and with difficulty 
aroused him from sleep and told him what we hoped, and asked 
him if he knew to whom he had been telegraphing in several 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 503 

There were days of great excitement, claims and 
counter-claims. Hayes must have all the votes of the 
disputed States to win. It was known almost at once 
that Oregon and California were safe, and that South 
Carolina was Republican on the face of the returns. 
As Chamberlain, the Governor, was candidate for 
reelection, it was assumed that in that State there 
would be no change. Chamberlain, remembering the 
"Hamburg Massacre" and fearing election riots, had 
asked for troops. Grant had sent them, and they were 
now at the state capital. 1 

States the night before. He was very weary and gave me little in- 
formation and told me to do what I thought best. Returning to 
the committee room I wrote various dispatches, signing to some 
Mr. Chandler's name and to others my own, and Mr. Reid took 
them downtown to send by telegraph. Then I went to breakfast 
and came back to the committee room about the time that various 
callers began to arrive and. shortly Mr. Chandler came down. We 
discussed the situation and he sent out his famous telegram, 
•Hayes has 185 votes and is elected.' Our spirits arose during the 
day, and in the afternoon there was a consultation as to what 
should be done. Among other plans adopted it was decided that 
I must go south." (Statement by William E. Chandler, hitherto 
unpublished.) 

1 "In no case, except that of South Carolina, was the number 
of soldiers in any State increased in anticipation of the election, 
saving that twenty-four men and an officer were sent from Fort 
Foote to Petersburg, Virginia, where disturbances were threatened 
prior to the election. 

"No troops were stationed at the voting-places. In Florida and 
in Louisiana, respectively, the small number of soldiers already 
in the said States were stationed at such points in each State as 
were most threatened with violence, where they might be avail- 
able as a posse for the officer whose duty it was to preserve the 



504 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

On the face of the returns, Tilden had a majority 
in Louisiana and Hayes in Florida, but "the face of 
the returns" was an uncertain problem at that junc- 
ture, and party leaders on both sides sped South, 
while those at home awaited the result with tense 
solicitude. 

On Grant rested the responsibility for keeping 
peace. He did not wait for violence to develop. On 
November 10, three days after the election, he sent 
to Sherman, the General of the Army, this dispatch : 
"Instruct General Augur in Louisiana, and General 
Ruger in Florida, to be vigilant with the force at their 
command to preserve peace and good order, and to 
see that the proper and legal boards of canvassers 
are unmolested in the performance of their duties. 
Should there be any grounds of suspicion of a fraudu- 
lent count on either side, it should be reported and 
denounced at once. No man worthy of the office of 
President should be willing to hold it if counted in 
or placed there by fraud. Either party can afford to 
be disappointed in the result. The country cannot 
afford to have the result tainted by the suspicion of 
illegal or false returns." 

peace and prevent intimidation of voters. Such a disposition of 
the troops seemed to me reasonable and justified by law and prec- 
edent, while its omission would have been inconsistent with the 
constitutional duty of the President of the United States ' to take 
care that the laws be faithfully executed.' " (Richardson, Messages 
and Papers, vol. vn, pp. 419-20.) 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 505 

On the face of the returns it appeared that Florida 
had gone for Hayes by a plurality of 48 votes, a nar- 
row margin, which the Board of State Canvassers 
increased into a plurality of 925 on the ground of 
frauds and irregularities. Only by leaning backward 
could the Republican board have given the State to 
Tilden. The real contention was in Louisiana, where 
on the face of the returns, the Democratic electors 
had majorities ranging from 6300 to 8957, and where 
the returning board, having the final word, was the 
same board which made the trouble in 1874 and had 
been condemned by two congressional committees. 

The chairman was J. Madison Wells, the former 
Governor, whom Sheridan had characterized ten 
years before as a political trickster and a dishonest 
man. The three other members of the board were of 
his moral stripe; and two of them were negroes. All 
were Republicans, the only Democrat having resigned 
two years before, leaving a vacancy which had not 
been filled. With such material, almost any re- 
sult might be expected, and the country centered 
its attention on New Orleans. "Visiting Statesmen" 
were quickly on the ground, Grant having invited 
prominent Republicans like Sherman, Garfield, 
Kasson, Stanley Matthews, and Lew Wallace, while 
Hewitt asked as many Democrats, among them 
Palmer, Trumbull, Randall, Curtis, Julian, and 



500 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Watterson. Committees of these "Visiting States- 
men" attended the meetings of the returning board 
and on December 6, the board announced that Hayes 
electors had been chosen by majorities varying from 
4G26 to 4712, securing this result by throwing out 
13.250 Democratic votes and 2042 Republican. The 
final sessions of the board were held in secret and it 
was claimed by Hewitt that Wells and his associates 
tried to sell out to the Democrats for cash. No evi- 
dence was ever offered. A number of the Republi- 
can "Visiting Statesmen" on the day of the return 
signed a statement which was sent to Grant giving 
the names of parishes along the Mississippi and 
Arkansas border where outrages had been per- 
petrated and where, "when violence and intimida- 
tion were inefficient, murder, maiming, and mutila- 
tion were resorted to." The Democratic statesmen 
signed a letter to Hewitt, in which they said, "The 
fact that there was no riot or bloodshed in any local- 
ity, no force, intimidation, or violence in any parish 
in Louisiana where both parties voted, gives strong 
presumption that there was no valid excuse for the 
Republican voters in absenting themselves from the 
polls, but they were purposely kept away to subserve 
partisan ends." Of the Democratic "Visiting States- 
men" Palmer, Trumbull, and Julian were formerly 
Republicans. "New converts are proverbially bitter 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 507 

and unfair towards those they have recently left," 
remarks John Sherman. 

In a letter to Hayes just prior to the determination 
by the returning board, Sherman had written of the 
bull-dozed parishes: "It seems more like the history 
of hell than of civilized and Christian communities. 
. . . That you would have received at a fair election 
a large majority in Louisiana, no honest man can 
question." 1 

When the electors came to ballot in the several 
States on December 6, two days after Congress met, 
Hayes had 185 duly authenticated votes, Tilden 184. 
The Democrats protested that the four votes from 
Florida and the eight from Louisiana rightfully 
belonged to Tilden. They also claimed one from 
Oregon, where a Republican elector, Watts, was held 
to be ineligible under the Constitution, being a dep- 
uty postmaster. If this claim were granted, Tilden 
would still have 185 votes even though the two 
Southern States were credited to Hayes. 

Had both branches of Congress been Republican 
the contest would have ended here, and Hayes would 
have been declared elected in due course, perhaps 
with oratorical objection on the part of the minority. 
But the Senate, Republican by a majority of 17, was 
offset by a Democratic House with a majority of 74. 
1 Recollections, p. 558. 



508 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

The Constitution and the statutes were inadequate 
to meet this situation. Republicans, among them 
Hayes himself, contended that when the Constitu- 
tion said, "The President of the Senate shall, in the 
presence of the Senate and the House of Representa- 
tives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then 
be counted," it implied that when there were two 
certificates from a State, the President of the Senate 
must decide which one was valid, count the votes 
and declare the result; that it was a mere ministerial 
duty; and that Congress had no right to interfere. 

But there had been adopted in 1865 a joint rule 
providing that "No vote objected to shall be counted 
except by the concurrent votes of the two Houses." 
The rule had been rescinded by the Senate almost 
unanimously, and it was not now regarded by the 
Senate as in force. Should the House, insisting on 
the rule, reject the votes of Florida and Louisiana, 
Tilden would have a majority. The Senate could 
not retaliate by rejecting votes of other Southern 
States, because, in that event, . there would be no 
election and the Democratic House would then pro- 
ceed under the Constitution to elect Tilden in a vote 
by States. 

There seemed to be no common ground. Republi- 
cans throughout the country, with few exceptions, 
believed that whatever might be the technicalities 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 509 

about returning boards, Hayes was entitled to the 
office, because if there had been a fair election he 
would undoubtedly have carried all the disputed 
States with others in the South. The Democrats 
were even more vehement in contending that they 
had chosen the electors in Florida and Louisiana and 
made much also of the undisputed but irrelevant 
circumstance that throughout the country Tilden 
electors had received a majority of 300,000 in the 
popular vote. 

There was wild talk by frenzied partisans; all sorts 
of tales had currency; it was said that Grant aspired 
to dictatorial power. There were reports of South- 
ern rifle clubs to march on Washington to help seat 
Tilden; and Tilden "minute men" were said to be en- 
rolling through the North — an Army of Democratic 
veterans of the Civil War. Any mad story, no matter 
how impossible, was sure to have its dupes, and there 
was need of a firm hand in Washington. Grant was 
self-contained and imperturbable. He used all his 
influence to bring the embittered factions into line, 
and so insure a peaceful settlement of the dispute. 

McCrary, of Iowa, who afterwards was made by 
Hayes a member of the Cabinet, introduced a resolu- 
tion in the House for a committee to act in conjunc- 
tion with any similar committee appointed by the 
Senate to report without delay a measure through 



510 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

which might be removed "all doubts and uncer- 
tainty" as to the manner of determining questions 
as to the legality and validity of returns, "to the 
end that the votes may be counted and the result 
declared by a tribunal whose authority none can 
question and whose decision all will accept as final." 1 

Grant knew about this resolution in advance and 
summoning Hewitt to the White House secured his 
acquiescence in the compromise, which promptly 
passed both House and Senate without debate. 
Edmunds was chairman for the Senate, Henry B. 
Payne, of Ohio, for the House. 

The committees unanimously reported a bill for 
an Electoral Commission, to be composed of five 
Senators, five members of the House, and four Jus- 
tices of the Supreme Court, who were to choose 
another Justice of the Court, thus making a commis- 
sion of fifteen. The bill provided that "No electoral 
vote or votes from any State from which but one 
return has been received shall be rejected except by 
the affirmative vote of the two Houses." In the case 
of States from which there was more than one return 
"all such returns and papers should be submitted to 
the judgment and decision, as to which is the true 
and lawful electoral vote of such State," of the Elec- 
toral Commission. The decision of the Commission 
1 Haworth, The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Election, p. 190. 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 511 

could be overthrown only by the concurrence of both 
Houses acting separately. 

Edmunds, Conkling, and Thurman delivered argu- 
ments for the bill which take high rank. Morton, 
Blaine, and Sherman antagonized it. They said it 
was unconstitutional, but their real reason was the 
fear that it would work unfavorably to Hayes. The 
bill was carried in both branches by Democratic 
votes; 26 Democrats and 21 Republicans voted for 
it in the Senate, 16 Republicans and one Democrat 
against. In the House the ayes were 159 Democrats 
and 32 Republicans; the noes were 18 Democrats 
and 68 Republicans. It was expected by both parties 
that the Commission would be more likely to favor 
Tilden than Hayes. 

On January 29, Grant signed the bill and at the 
same time sent a virile message announcing his ap- 
proval. "It is the highest duty of the lawmaking 
power," he said, "to provide in advance a constitu- 
tional, orderly, and just method of executing the 
Constitution in this most interesting and critical of 
its provisions. ... It must be that one of the two 
candidates has been elected; and it would be de- 
plorable to witness an irregular controversy as to 
which of the two should receive or which should 
continue to hold the office. . . . The country is agi- 
tated. It needs and it desires peace and quiet and 



512 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

harmony between all parties and all sections. Its 
industries are arrested, labor unemployed, capital 
idle, and enterprise paralyzed by reason of the doubt 
and anxiety attending the uncertainty of a double 
claim to the Chief Magistracy of the Nation. It 
wants to be assured that the result of the election 
will be accepted without resistance from the support- 
ers of the disappointed candidate, and that its high- 
est officer shall not hold his place with a questioned 
title of right." 

During these strenuous days, when history was in 
the making and his own future with his coun- 
try's was at stake, Tilden withdrew himself into his 
cloistered sanctuary in Gramercy Park, feebly and 
stealthily whispering now and then a futile scheme. 
While others struggled with the tremendous problem, 
he "devoted more than a month to the preparation 
of a complete history of the electoral counts from the 
foundation of the Government, to show it to have 
been the unbroken usage of Congress, not of the 
President of the Senate, to count the electoral votes," 
a work which could have been prepared almost as 
well by a skilled lawyer's clerk. 1 He was inadequate 
to a great opportunity, and had he been made Presi- 
dent would have been a weak executive, of the 
Buchanan type. 

1 Bigclow, Life of Tilden. 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 513 

The Democrats in Congress were fated to a cruel 
disappointment. The Justices of the Supreme Court 
indicated in the bill were Clifford, Strong, Miller, and 
Field, representing four great geographical divisions, 
and equally divided in their political beliefs. It was 
agreed that they would choose as the fifth Justice, 
David Davis, who had once been a Republican, but 
who had wavered in the faith ; but at the last minute, 
just before the bill was laid before the House, word 
came from Illinois, where the Legislature had been 
for weeks in deadlock over a second term for Logan 
in the Senate, that the Democrats had joined the 
independents and elected Davis. Thus he was barred. 
The four Justices selected Bradley in his stead, a 
jurist with a delicate sense of honor, and of singu- 
larly fine grain. 

The Senate chose as members of the Commission 
Edmunds, Morton, Frelinghuysen, Thurman, and 
Bayard; the House, Payne, Hunton, Abbott, Hoar, 
and Garfield. When the joint session met on Febru- 
ary 1, all went smoothly till Florida was reached, 
with three certificates, and on objection that case 
went to the Electoral Commission which held its ses- 
sions in the room of the Supreme Court. Here was 
to be a precedent for all the other cases. Could the 
Commission go back of the returns? After a week of 
arguments and secret sessions, the Commission held 



S14 ULYSSES S. GRANT 






that it could not. The interest in Bradley's opinion 
was intense. Later he wrote that it "expressed the 
honest conclusion to which I had arrived, and which, 
after a full consideration of the whole matter, seemed 
to me the only satisfactory conclusion of the ques- 
tion." "It seems to me," he said, "that the two 
Houses of Congress, in proceeding with the count, 
are bound to recognize the determination of the State 
Board of Canvassers as the act of the State and as 
the most authentic evidence of the appointment 
made by the State; and that while they may go be- 
hind the Governor's certificate, if necessary, they can 
only do so for the purpose of ascertaining whether 
he has truly certified the results to which the board 
arrived. They cannot sit as a court of appeals on 
the action of that board." 

The decision of the Commission was reported to 
the joint session. The Senate retired to its chamber 
and ratified the decision; the House refused ratifica- 
tion, and by the terms of the act creating the Com- 
mission, the two Houses not having concurred in 
overthrowing its decision, the decision stood. There 
were similar proceedings with regard to Louisiana, 
Oregon, and South Carolina. The Democrats be- 
came more angry, as the count progressed from 
day to day. They were convinced that they were 
being swindled out of what was fairly theirs, and 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 515 

blindly reaching for a victim of their wrath, they hit 
on Justice Bradley and rained denunciation on his 
head. For a time he was the most detested man in 
the United States. One would have thought that he 
had sought this opportunity to perpetrate a fraud, 
instead of shrinking from the lot that fell to him. No 
graver instance of injustice could have been con- 
ceived. The cabalistic number 8 to 7 was bandied 
back and forth and Bradley's name became a byword 
and reproach. 

Yet Bradley was merely one of a tribunal. There 
was no better reason for upbraiding him than for 
denouncing Strong and Miller, his associates. He 
was not chosen as the umpire; he was an individual 
member of the Commission clothed with the same 
responsibility as the rest — a responsibility which he 
had looked forward to with dread. Besides, there is 
good ground for the belief that Davis would have 
done as he did in his place. 1 

Sixty Democratic Representatives, most of them 
from the North and West, tried by a filibuster to delay 

1 " The day after the inauguration of Hayes, my kinsman Stan- 
ley Matthews said to me, ' You people wanted Judge Davis. So 
did we. I will tell you what I know, that Judge Davis was safe for 
us as Judge Bradley. We preferred him because he carried more 
weight.' The subsequent career of Judge Davis in the Senate 
gives conclusive proof that this was true." (Henry Watterson, 
r The Hayes-Tilden Contest for the Presidency," in the Century 
for May, 1913.) 



516 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the count until March 4, when Congress would expire 
by limitation, leaving the Presidency hanging in the 
air. But as soon as the Florida decision foreshadowed 
the result, 42 Southern Democrats "solemnly pledged 
themselves to each other upon their sacred honor to 
oppose all attempts to frustrate the counting of the 
votes for President." Speaker Randall, with patriotic 
firmness, held the House in hand till, at the close of 
an all-night session, at four o'clock in the morning of 
March 2, the count was finished and the President 
pro tempore declared Hayes elected. 

The 4th of March was Sunday, and to save further 
complications Hayes was quietly sworn in that day 
by Chief Justice Waite, with Grant and Fish as wit- 
nesses. On Monday he was formally inaugurated as 
peacefully as though there had been no controversy 
Grant rode to the Capitol by his side. 

There is no doubt the country as a whole believed 
that Tilden should have been declared elected; the 
question will always be open to dispute. The North 
had tired of talk about intimidation in the South and 
were beginning to lose all interest in the negro now 
that it was found that he could not exercise without 
support the right of suffrage which had been imposed 
upon him. The violence and fraud in the back par- 
ishes of Louisiana were only vaguely pictured in the 
public consciousness, while the fact of throwing out 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 517 

13,000 Democratic votes by the returning board was 
obvious to all. There is no reasonable doubt that, with 
a fair election, niore Southern States than those fi- 
nally accorded him would have been carried for Hayes, 
and it is not forgotten that the South, by reason of 
increased representation due to the suppressed negro 
vote, had 35 votes in the Electoral College with which 
to overcome Republican majorities in Northern 
States. There was great clamor at the time and for 
years after about a "stolen Presidency," and' Hayes 
is thought by many fair-minded men to-day to have 
been a fraudulent incumbent; but with strict accu- 
racy it must be said that he was legally elected. If 
there was "stealing," it was not in Washington. If 
the Electoral Commission, for which the Democrats 
were willing at the time of its creation to accept re- 
sponsibility, by its decision made it possible for Con- 
gress to count the contesting Democratic electors, 
there would have been no talk of fraud. Yet there is 
no fair ground for saying that the minority of the 
Commission were right, and the majority wrong. It 
happened that all voted along party lines. If there 
was "stealing," it must have been in Florida and 
Louisiana, and in the multitude of testimony it will 
always remain a question there as to who commit- 
ted the first theft. 

Before the count of electoral votes had been com- 



518 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

pleted, Ohio friends of Hayes, perhaps without his 
knowledge, had told Southern Democrats that after 
his nomination he would not continue military inter- 
vention in the South, but this assurance had no bear- 
ing on the ultimate result. l Hayes had hardly taken 
his seat before he sent for Chamberlain and Wade 
Hampton, who had set up rival governments in South 
Carolina, and with the consent of both withdrew the 
federal troops from the state capital, leaving the 
Hampton Government in control. 

In Louisiana, where Packard and Nicholls were still 
contesting the governorship and where Packard had 
made a better showing in the returns than Hayes, the 
troops were also withdrawn, and the Nicholls Govern- 
ment, representing white supremacy, assumed con- 
trol of state affairs. Grant, just before he went out of 
office, had been appealed to by the Packard Gov- 
ernment, but had replied that public opinion in the 
North would no longer tolerate military interference. 2 

1 The Wormley Conference. 

2 Executive Mansion, 
Washington, D.C., March 1, 1ST". 

To Gov. S. B. Packard, 

New Orleans, La.: — 
In answer to your dispatch of this date, the President directs me 
to say that he feels it his duty to state frankly that he does not 
believe public opinion will longer support the maintenance of the 
State Government in Louisiana by the use of the military, and 
that he must concur in this manifest feeling. The troops will 
hereafter, as in the past, protect life and property from mob vio- 



THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876 519 

The time had manifestly come for the new order in 

the South, which has ever since prevailed. 

Grant's attitude throughout this time of general 

upheaval had been a powerful factor in preserving 

peace, and helping a harmonious solution. To him is 

due a great share of credit for creating the Electoral 

Commission and assuring acquiescence in the result. 1 

lence when the State authorities fail, but during the remaining 
days of his official life they will not be used to establish or to pull 
down either claimant for control of the State. It is not his purpose 
to recognize either claimant. 

C. C. Sniffen, Secretary. 

1 George W. Childs tells in his recollections how Grant sent for 
him in Washington and said: "I have spoken of an Electoral 
Commission, and the leaders of the party are opposed to it, which 
I am sorry to see. They say that if an Electoral Commission is 
appointed you might as well count in Mr. Tilden. I would 
sooner have Mr. Tilden than that the Republicans should have 
a President who could be stigmatized as a fraud. If I were Mr. 
Hayes I would not have it unless it was settled in some way out- 
side the Senate. This matter is opposed by the leading Republicans 
in the House and Senate and throughout the country." ... I' 
named a leading Democrat in the House, . . . whom it would be 
well for General Grant to see in the matter, and the suggestion 
was acted on. I sent for this gentleman to come to the White 
House, and put the dilemma to him in President Grant's name. . . . 

The answer at once was that the Democrats would favor it, and 
it was through that gentleman and General Grant that the matter 
was carried through. He sent for Mr. Conkling and said, with 
deep earnestness: "This matter is a serious one, and the people 
feel it very deeply. 1 think this Electoral Commission ought to 
be appointed." Conkling answered: "Mr. President, Senator 
Morton (who was then the acknowledged leader of the Senate) 
is opposed to it and opposed to your efforts: but if you wish the 
Commission carried I can do it." He said: "I wish it done." 
Mr. Conkling took hold of the matter and put it through. The 



520 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

"Nothing could have been wiser than the Electoral 
Commission," he said a little later, "and nothing 
could be more unpatriotic than the attempt to impair 
the title of Mr. Hayes as fraudulent. There was a 
good deal of cowardice and knavery in that effort. 
Mr. Hayes is just as much President as any of his 
predecessors. ... I never believed there would be a 
blow, but I had so many warnings that I made all my 
preparations. ... I was quite prepared for any con- 
tingency. Any outbreak would have been suddenly 
and summarily stopped. ... If Tilden was declared 
elected, I intended to hand him over the reins, and 
see him peacefully installed. ... I would not have 
raised my finger to have put Hayes in, if in so doing I 
did Tilden the slightest injustice. All I wanted was for 
the legal powers to declare a President, to keep the 
machine running, allay the passions of the canvass, 
and allow the country peace. ... I felt, personally, 
that I had been vouchsafed a special deliverance. It 
was a great blessing to the country. . . . We had peace, 
and order, and observance of the law, and the world 
had a new illustration of the dignity and efficiency of 
the Republic. This we owe to the wisdom and fore- 
sight of the men who formed the Electoral Commis- 
sion, Democrats as well as Republicans." 

leading Democrat I have spoken of took the initiative in the 
House and Mr. Conkling in the Senate. 



CHAPTER XLV 
THE ADMINISTRATION IN REVIEW 

Divested of his rank and office, Grant found him- 
self once more the looming figure of the time, as he 
had been directly after Appomattox. The venom of 
attack was dissipated with the disappearance of offi- 
cial power. There was a quick rebound in public 
sentiment as often happens with a people jealous 
of those on whom they have conferred supreme au- 
thority. There was no more talk of Csesarism, nepo- 
tism, or corruption. The folly of the first was obvious 
now that the "Csesar" pictured by the party press 
was a plain citizen seemingly thankful to return to 
private life; the silliness of the attacks on nepotism 
was manifest now that the little flock of office-holding 
relatives found their petty titles and emoluments at 
the disposal of a President on whom they had no 
claim; as for corruption and gift-taking, here was 
Grant at the close of sixteen years of service in such 
financial straits that he was puzzled how to get along. 
True, he had houses presented by the people, but 
they were not endowed, and in them he could not 
afford to live; he had a farm at Gravois, near St. 
Louis, the site of the Dent homestead, on which he 



522 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

had spent borrowed money and which had never 
paid; he had used up his salary while President, and 
though he had a little income from investments, he 
would have been far better off if he had spent the 
sixteen years in trade. Those who had been most 
virulent in their attacks upon him for eight years now 
felt that they had done him wrong. He was again 
the idol of his countrymen, who at last could com- 
prehend the merits of an administration, thrown in 
the shadow for a time by superficial faults. They 
realized how they had leaned on him during the 
months when the succession was in doubt, and it 
began to dawn upon them that the United States 
during his term as President had held high rank, that 
there had never been a period in our history when an 
American citizen could count so surely on world- 
wide respect, and that we now stood higher in the 
world's regard than at any other moment since the 
Government began. 

No President ever had a firmer or more consistent 
foreign policy than Grant. Fish is entitled to all the 
credit which belongs to him and which Grant himself 
was always generous to bestow, but Fish alone could 
not have carried through the diplomatic triumphs 
which shed on Grant's Administration their resplend- 
ency. Fish was far-seeing, firm, and sensible, but he 
w r ould have been quite futile without Grant. It was 



THE ADMINISTRATION IN REVIEW 523 

the steady backing of the White House that made it 
possible for Fish to carry through his foreign policy, 
and in most instances the programme was as truly 
Grant's as his. 

A case in point is the Virginius incident early in 
the second term, which might have brought on war 
with Spain if badly managed, but which was handled 
with such firmness and discretion that without war 
we won in our contention and held our national re- 
spect. The Virginius was an American-built steamer 
which for some years had been employed at intervals 
in landing military expeditions to aid the Cuban 
insurrection. On October 31, 1873, while bound 
from Kingston in Jamaica to a Cuban port, flying 
our flag but carrying war material, it was captured 
by a Spanish man-of-war and taken into Santiago. 
She had on board one hundred and fifty-five passen- 
gers and crew, most of them Cubans planning to join 
the insurrection, but some of them citizens of the 
United States. Early in November fifty-three of the 
passengers and crew were sentenced by court martial 
and shot, among them eight of our citizens. "If it 
prove that an American citizen has been wrongfully 
executed, this Government will require most ample 
reparation," Fish promptly cabled Sickles, our Min- 
ister to Spain. Castelar, the Spanish President, at 
once and no doubt with sincerity expressed regret. 






524 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

The country was ablaze with wrath. The press de- 
manded swift revenge. Mass meetings heard hot 
speeches. Fish was too slow. The people east of the 
Missouri were for immediate hostilities. War seemed 
at hand. 

But Fish, sustained by Grant, proceeded cau- 
tiously. He was not swept off his feet by clamor, but 
he had lost no time in stating our position and he did 
not now dally with well-phrased diplomatic notes. 
"Unless abundant reparation shall have been vol- 
untarily tendered," he cabled Sickles on November 
14, "you will demand the restoration of the Virginius 
and the release and delivery to the United States of 
the persons captured on her who have not yet been 
massacred, and that the flag of the United States 
be saluted in the port of Santiago and the signal pun- 
ishment of the officials who were concerned in the 
capture of the vessel and the execution of the pas- 
sengers and crew. In case of refusal of satisfactory 
reparation, written twelve days from this date, you 
will . . . close your legation and leave Madrid." 

Feeling ran high in Madrid as well as in the United 
States, and Sickles was at times hysterical, but Grant 
and Fish retained their poise. Fish took the business 
up in Washington with Polo, the Spanish Minister, 
and these two reached a satisfactory agreement. 
The Virginius and her survivors were to be restored 



THE ADMINISTRATION IN REVIEW 525 

immediately. Spain was to have an opportunity to 
prove that the Virginius at the time of capture was 
not entitled to fly our colors, and if unable to prove 
this before December 25, she must salute our flag. 
Officials guilty of illegal acts of violence toward citi- 
zens of the United States were to be punished. 

On December 18, the Virginius, flying our flag, was 
delivered to our navy at Bahia Honda in Cuba, but 
while on her way to New York sank in a storm. Two 
days later the surviving prisoners were surrendered 
and reached New York in safety. Investigation 
showed that the Virginius when captured was im- 
properly carrying the American flag and conse- 
quently there was no salute. In the hands of Grant 
and Fish the whole affair was handled with dignity 
and self-respect. Pending negotiations, Grant put 
the navy on a war footing, "trusting to Congress and 
the public opinion of the American people to justify 
my action." 1 

"I would sum up the policy of the Administra- 
tion," Grant had said in his second annual message, 
"to be a thorough enforcement of every law; a faith- 
ful collection of every tax provided for; economy in 
the disbursement of the same; a prompt payment of 
every debt of the nation ; a reduction of taxes as rap- 
idly as the requirements of the country will admit; 
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vn, p. 242. 



526 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

reductions of taxation and tariff to be so arranged 
as to afford the greatest relief to the greatest number; 
honest and fair dealings with all other peoples, to the 
end that war with all its blighting consequences may 
be avoided, but without surrendering any right or 
obligation due to us; a reform in the treatment of 
Indians and in the whole civil service of the country; 
and finally, in securing a pure, untrammeled ballot, 
where every man entitled to cast a vote may do so 
just once at each election, without fear of molesta- 
tion or proscription on account of his political faith, 
nationality, or color." 

And at the beginning of his second term he thus 
outlined his purposes in his inaugural: "My efforts 
in the future will be directed to the restoration of 
good feeling between the different sections of our 
common country; to the restoration of our currency 
to a fixed value as compared with the world's stand- 
ard of value — gold — and, if possible to a par with 
it; to the construction of cheap routes of transit 
throughout the land; to the end that the products of 
all may find a market and leave a living remunera- 
tion to the producer; to the maintenance of friendly 
relations with all our neighbors, and with distant 
nations; to the reestablishment of our commerce and 
share in the carrying trade upon the ocean; to the 
encouragement of such manufacturing industries as 



THE ADMINISTRATION IN REVIEW 527 

can be economically pursued in this country to the 
end that the exports of home products and industries 
may pay for our imports — the only sure method of 
returning to and maintaining a specie basis; to the 
elevation of labor; and by a humane course to bring 
the aborigines of the country under the benign influ- 
ences of education and civilization." 

No programme was ever more faithfully carried 
out by any President. We have seen how firmly he 
upheld American rights abroad; how he was first in 
history to establish arbitration in the settlement of 
international disputes; how he stood for the Monroe 
Doctrine in all his dealings with other American 
Republics. He was equally firm with Mexico, with 
Spain, with France, with England, respecting no dis- 
tinction between weak and powerful governments 
when national dignity was involved. He demanded 
the recall of Catacazy, the Russian Minister, who 
had abused American officials and had interfered 
obnoxiously in the relations between the United 
States and other powers. "It was impossible," he 
said to Congress, ''with self-respect or with a just 
regard to the dignity of the country, to permit Mr. 
Catacazy to continue to hold intercourse with this 
Government." He settled boundary disputes with 
Great Britain, and claims with the American Repub- 
lics, took up with Spain and England questions of 



528 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

extradition, securing from Spain the extradition of 
"Boss" Tweed who had escaped to Cuba; would 
have taken over San Domingo while the time was 
ripe; maintained peace with all the world amid grave 
international problems, yet never thought to make 
a sanctimonious merit of having kept the country 
out of war. 

Congress interfered with his ambition to establish 
firmly a reformed civil service, but he gave reform 
an impetus which has continued to this day. He en- 
forced the laws, maintained economy in government 
expenditures, lowered taxes, and reduced the na- 
tional debt. That he could not secure a pure, un- 
trammeled ballot was not his fault. He tried; but 
here he ran against impossible conditions which no 
Executive could hope to overcome. 

He urged in every way the building-up of an 
American merchant marine. " It is a national humili- 
ation," he said, "that we are now compelled to pay 
from twenty to thirty million dollars annually . . . 
to foreigners for doing the work which should be 
done by American vessels, American-built, Ameri- 
can-owned, and American-manned." 1 

"A revival of shipbuilding, and particularly of 
iron steamship building," he said again, — for he 
kept returning to this theme, — "is of vast impor- 
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vn, p. 53. 



THE ADMINISTRATION IN REVIEW 529 

tance to our national prosperity. ... I would be will- 
ing to see a great departure from the usual course of 
Government in supporting what might usually be 
termed private enterprise. I would not suggest as a 
remedy direct subsidy to American steamship lines, 
but would suggest the direct offer of ample com- 
pensation for carrying the mails between Atlantic 
seaboard cities and would extend this liberality to 
vessels carrying the mails to South American States 
and to Central America and Mexico, and would pur- 
sue the same policy from our Pacific seaports to for- 
eign seaports on the Pacific. . . ." l 

He was the first President to call emphatic atten- 
tion to the peril of an ignorant foreign-born elector- 
ate, lacking in knowledge of the significance of our 
institutions. "The compulsory support of the free 
school and the disfranchisement of all who cannot 
read and write the English language, after a fixed 
probation, would meet my hearty approval. . . . 
Foreigners coming to this country to become citizens, 
who are educated in their own language, should ac- 
quire the requisite knowledge of ours during the nec- 
essary residence to obtain naturalization. If they did 
not take interest enough in our language to acquire 
sufficient knowledge of it to enable them to study the 
institutions and laws of the country intelligently, I 
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vn, pp. 301-02. 



530 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

would not confer upon them the right to make such 
laws or to select those who do." 1 

He suggested a readjustment of the tariff "so as to 
increase the revenue, and at the same time decrease 
the number of articles upon which duties are levied. 
Those articles which enter into our manufactures and 
are not produced at home, it seems to me, should be 
entered free. Those articles of manufacture which we 
produce a constituent part of, but do not produce the 
whole, that part which we do not produce should 
enter free also." 2 

When Grant entered on the Presidency, to use his 
own words "the country was laboring under an enor- 
mous debt contracted in the suppression of the rebel- 
lion; and taxation was so oppressive as to discourage 
production." There was danger of a foreign war. 
Not only was the war averted by the Treaty of Wash- 
ington, establishing the principle of arbitration, but 
in the first seven years of his Administration taxes 
were reduced by nearly $300,000,000, and the na- 
tional debt by $435,000,000. By refunding opera- 
tions the annual interest on the debt was reduced 
from $130,000,000 to $100,000,000, an adverse bal- 
ance of trade amounting to $130,000,000 was trans- 
ferred to a balance of $120,000,000 in our favor. 



I 



1 Richardson, ftfessages and Papers, vol. vn, p. -ill. 

2 Ibid., pp. 293-94. 



THE ADMINISTRATION IN REVIEW 531 

Provision had been made for the resumption of specie 
payments and inflation, which was rampant, had 
been dealt a deadly blow. 

For one who entered on his service with no politi- 
cal experience whatever, who was a stranger to the 
ways of statecraft and diplomacy, Grant's Presi- 
dency presents a record of success almost as striking 
though less dramatic than his career in war. His 
messages, from which citations have been made, 
were mostly written with his own hand, and he was 
always in close touch with the innumerable impor- 
tant questions in which the various members of his 
Cabinet were immediately concerned. 

Considering all these things there is a needless note 
of pathos in the personal reference which he incor- 
porated in his last message in December, 1876: — 

" It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to 
the office of Chief Executive without any previous 
political training. From the age of seventeen I had 
never even witnessed the excitement attending a 
presidential campaign but twice antecedent to my 
own candidacy, and at but one of them was I eligible 
as a voter. 

"Under such circumstances it is but reasonable to 
suppose that errors of judgment must have occurred. 
Even had they not, differences of opinion between 
the Executive, bound by an oath to the strict per- 



532 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

formance of his duties, and writers and debaters, 
must have arisen. It is not necessarily evidence of 
blunder on the part of the Executive because there are 
these differences of views. Mistakes have been made, 
as all can see, and I admit, but it seems to me oftener 
in the selections made in the assistants appointed to 
aid in carrying out the various duties of administer- 
ing the government — in nearly every case selected 
without a personal acquaintance with the appointee, 
but upon recommendation of the representatives 
chosen directly by the people. It is impossible, where 
so many trusts are to be allotted, that the right par- 
ties should be chosen in every instance. History 
shows that no Administration from the time of 
Washington to the present has been free from these 
mistakes. But I leave comparisons to history, claim- 
ing only that I have acted in every instance from a 
conscientious desire to do what was right, constitu- 
tional, within the law, and for the very best interests 
of the whole people. Failures have been errors of 
judgment, not of intent." * 

In constructive achievements, coming as it did 
directly after the demoralization of the war and the 
upset of traditions due to Lincoln's military measures 
in that imperative emergency, Grant's Administra- 
tion ranks second only to that of Washington, who 
1 Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vn, pp. 399-400. 



THE ADMINISTRATION IN REVIEW 533 

had to set the Government in motion under the Con- 
stitution. He might safely "leave comparisons to 
history." If we except the baneful Southern problem 
which was bequeathed to him, and where his fault, if 
fault there was, lay in the rigid execution of the law, it 
would be hard to place the finger now on an execu- 
tive policy approved by him which subsequent ex- 
perience has condemned. 



CHAPTER XLVI 

THE TRIP AROUND THE WORLD — THE THIRD 
TERM 

A few weeks of adulation and then Grant went 
abroad. He sailed from Philadelphia in middle May. 
His daughter Nellie, who had married Algernon 
Sartoris in the White House, was living in her hus- 
band's home in England. Beyond seeing her he had 
few plans. 

Great crowds bade him good-bye in Philadelphia, 
thronging the wharves from which he sailed with 
Mrs. Grant and Jesse, his youngest boy. To his 
amazement even greater crowds were at the wharves 
in Liverpool. Ten thousand Englishmen pushed 
through the custom house to welcome him. He was 
presented with the freedom of the city, both at 
Liverpool and Manchester, and his run toward 
London was like a triumph. In London the experi- 
ence was repeated. English tradespeople and work- 
ingmen held him in higher honor than he thought. 
To them he was the world's most famous living 
general, personifying in their eyes the marvel of 
democracy. 

Shortly, the scions of nobility took him in hand. 



THE TRIP AROUND THE WORLD 535 

When Fillmore and Van Buren were visitors in Eng- 
land they had little more attention than any other 
private citizen and trudged along complacently at 
the tail end of the line, but Grant, through some di- 
plomacy by our Minister in London, was treated as a 
former sovereign — not that he cared for it especially, 
but Pierrepont felt that as a former President of the 
United States he must not be slighted. Whatever 
those at home might think about it, the Englishman 
familiar with court etiquette would size it up as an 
indignity, not alone to Grant, but to the country 
whence he hailed. 

Aside from minor incidents the pleasure of the 
English visit was undimmed and the example of the 
London court followed Grant around the world. He 
visited every capital of Europe and almost every im- 
portant town. He talked with Bismarck and Von 
Moltke in Germany, with Gambetta and MacMahon 
in France, with Gortchakoff in Russia, with Castelar 
in Spain, with kings and queens and emperors, the 
Czar, the Pope. In almost every capital he was 
asked to witness a review of troops and he invariably 
declined. To the Crown Prince of Germany he said: 
"The truth is I am more of a farmer than a soldier. I 
take little or no interest in military affairs. I never 
went into the army without regret and I never retired 
without pleasure." He wandered dumbly through 



536 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the galleries and museums, was bored by paintings, 
sculptures, and cathedrals, but was impressed by the 
imposing grandeur of the Alps, great engineering 
works, and by the Pyramids. He loved especially to 
stroll the streets and see the common people. James 
Russell Lowell, our Minister to Spain, who enter- 
tained him at Madrid, has left a picture which may 
apply to all his wanderings : — 

"As he speaks nothing but English, he was as in- 
communicable as an iceberg and I think is rather 
bored by peregrination. What he likes best is to 
escape and wander about the streets with his 
Achates Young. After being here two days I think he 
knew Madrid better than I. He seemed to be very 
single-minded, honest, and sensible — very easy to be 
led by anybody he likes. He is perfectly unconscious 
and natural, naively puzzled, I fancied, to find him- 
self a personage, and going through the ceremonies to 
which he is condemned with a dogged imperturba- 
bility that annotated to me his career in general." l 

From Europe Grant went to Egypt and the Pyra- 
mids, and then to Asia, visiting the Holy Land, and 
later India, Siam, China, and Japan. He was greatly 
taken with the Orient. Japan he marveled at. China 
appealed to him. Li Hung Chang, with whom he 

1 To Charles Eliot Norton, Letters of James Russell Loicell, 
p. 233. 



THE TRIP AROUND THE WORLD 537 

talked, he rated among the world's four master 
minds in statecraft and diplomacy. 

While Grant was lingering abroad, rinding new 
scenes to lure him on and pleased by the atten- 
tion showered upon him, politics was shaping up at 
home. Hayes had pledged himself against a second 
term, and in no event could he have been elected if he 
had tried to run, so general was the feeling that his 
title had a taint. His course as President had alien- 
ated the men who had done most to put him in the 
place. The group which had been influential under 
Grant now found themselves of little consequence 
with the Administration. Conkling, Cameron, Logan, 
and others of the Stalwart wing were out of favor 
and out of sorts, while Sherman, Evarts, Hoar, and 
Schurz had Hayes's ear, and Southern Democrats 
were called in council when it came to naming office- 
holders in the South. The new Administration knew 
not Joseph. It was completely out of sympathy with 
"the machine" and recognized few party obligations 
of the old-fashioned kind. Blaine, who was pressing 
forward as the candidate for President, had not much 
in common either with Hayes or with the Stalwart 
group. The Stalwarts turned instinctively toward 
Grant. 

Word kept coming back about his European prog- 
ress, and the tidings stirred the people's pride, no 



538 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

matter what their politics; for in Grant's person they 
could see the Old World paying honor to the New. 
It was soon clear that his return would be a sequel 
for great popular acclaim. The thing to do was to 
prevent his coming back too soon so that the impetus 
of his reception might carry on to the Republican 
Convention. He had not been gone a year when 
the Stalwarts began to send him messages asking him 
not to hurry home and hinting at political develop- 
ments. He was human and took pleasure in the 
flattering hints. "Most every letter I get from the 
States, like Porter's to you, asks me to remain 
abroad," he wrote from Rome to Badeau in March, 
1878. "They have designs on me which I do not 
contemplate for myself. It is probable that I shall 
return to the United States early in the fall or early 
next spring." But he did not return that fall. It was 
September, 1879, when he sailed up the Golden Gate, 
and found still greater crowds awaiting him than he 
had seen at Philadelphia or Liverpool. He wandered 
up and down the coast, visited old haunts at Hum- 
boldt and Vancouver, which his experience there, if 
what it has been sometimes pictured, might have 
made him shun; then started east across the conti- 
nent, arriving at Galena the day following election, 
after a sweeping progress through the cities of the 
West. There he was greeted by his old neighbors, and 



THE THIRD TERM 539 

after loafing with them for a week, he started east 
again through demonstrations all along the line from 
crowds in cities numbered by the hundred thousands, 
at last in Philadelphia completing his circuit of the 
world. 

To Grant the country must have seemed unani- 
mous, but from the politician's point of view his 
coming back was premature — six months too early 
for their calculations. Besides, neither Grant nor the 
"Old Guard" seems to have been fully conscious of 
the deep-seated feeling against a third term in the 
Presidency. The people's adoration could not have 
been transmuted into votes. He did nothing to en- 
courage or discourage what was going on. He was 
quite ready to await results. 

He went to Mexico and Cuba continuing in this 
way his world itinerary — the most widely traveled 
citizen of the United States. 

Those who engineered the Third Term plan were 
daring and resourceful leaders. In the whole his- 
tory of our politics there has never been another 
group to rival them in intellectual force, in discipline, 
in ruthlessness, in organizing skill. We have since 
often had "Old Guards" on paper and in frenzied 
campaign cries; for "Old Guards" are easy buga- 
boos, but most of them have been the creatures of 
disordered fancies or demagogical appeal. The ele- 






540 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

merits of which they are assumed to be composed 
have seldom stood consistently together or wielded 
their imaginary power. But here was an "Old 
Guard" in truth whose members had no squeam- 
ishness about the name, whose faults at least were 
manly faults, and who were strangers to hypocrisy. 
Conkling in New York, Don Cameron in Pennsyl- 
vania, Logan in Illinois, each at the head of his bat- 
talions, formed a "Triumvirate" which derived its 
fitting title from Roman history, and like its Ro- 
man prototype was entitled to respect. They had 
their disciplined allies in other States, and, reaching 
into every corner of the country, they had their 
pickets placed. 

In February, while in Cuba, Washburne had writ- 
ten Grant about the prospects for another nomina- 
tion. The tone of his reply showed that he then ex- 
pected it, though he betrayed no great concern. "All 
that I want is that the Government rule should re- 
main in the hands of those who saved the Union until 
all the questions growing out of the war are forever 
settled. I would much rather any one of many I 
could mention should be President rather than that I 
should have it. . . . I shall not gratify my enemies 
by declining what has not been offered. I am not a 
candidate for anything, and if the Chicago Conven- 
tion nominates a candidate who can be elected, it will 



THE THIRD TERM 541 

gratify me, and the gratification will be greater if it 
should be some one other than myself. . . . Blaine I 
would like to see elected, but I fear the party could 
not elect him." l 

Later, from Galveston, on March 25, he wrote 
again to Washburne, who had suggested that he 
should authorize some one to say that in no event 
would he consent even to be a candidate after 1880: 
"I think any statement from me would be mis- 
construed, and would only serve as a handle for my 
enemies. Such a statement might well be made after 
the nomination, if I am nominated in such a way as to 
accept. It is a matter of supreme indifference to me 
whether I am or not. There are many persons I would 
prefer should have the office to myself. I owe so 
much to the Union men of the country that if they 
think my chances are better for election than for 
other probable candidates in case I should decline, I 
cannot decline if the nomination is tendered without 
seeking on my part." 

From these expressions there could be little ques- 
tion about his expectation that he would be called to 
serve or about his readiness to heed the call. Coming 
back from Mexico he followed up the Mississippi 
from New Orleans to Cairo, by way of Vicksburg 
and Memphis, tracing back the militant journey 
1 Letters to a Friend, Havana, Cuba, February 2, 1880. 



542 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

he had taken nearly twenty years before — and at 
last was at Galena, where he awaited the conven- 
tion, seemingly indifferent himself about the out- 
come, but acquiescent in the wishes of his family 
and friends. 

Meantime the "Old Guard" had been diligent. 
They were not too fastidious in their ways. They 
rushed resolutions through the New York and Penn- 
sylvania Conventions in February, imposing the unit 
rule upon the delegations from those States. In 
Illinois the State Convention elected Grant dele- 
gates from every district, ignoring protests from dis- 
tricts whose representatives did not approve. Simi- 
lar tactics prevailed in other States. 

When the National Republican Convention met in 
June, they had three hundred delegates for Grant in- 
cluding a clear majority from New Y r ork, Illinois, and 
Pennsylvania, and almost all the Southern and border 
States. Blaine had fewer votes than Grant, but they 
were well distributed throughout the North, while 
Sherman had, besides his own State of Ohio nearly 
solid, a scattering support, including some negro 
delegates in the South. Edmunds, Windom, and 
Washburne each had his friends, although no one of 
these was ever really in the running. 

As June approached, and it was evident that Grant 
could not be named without a bitter contest, some of 



THE THIRD TERM 543 

his intimates, who feared for the result in case the 
nomination came that way, earnestly begged him to 
withdraw, but by that time he had gone too far and 
could not quit without embarrassing his friends. His 
family were smitten with a longing to get back to 
Washington, and he acceded to their importunities. 
John Russell Young went to Galena and with much 
difficulty, in opposition to their wishes, induced 
Grant to write a letter addressed to Cameron, once 
in his Cabinet and now chairman of the Republican 
National Committee, authorizing his supporters if 
at any time so minded to withdraw his name. No 
copy of the letter was preserved and it was never 
used. 

In all the history of conventions there has never 
been another such as this. No gathering of any party 
has been so rich in stirring incident, so fertile in 
dramatic scenes, so pregnant in the tragedy of per- 
sonal and party feuds. It wrecked ambitions, opened 
new careers, and brought about strange combinations 
in the field of politics. The Triumvirate were beaten 
in trying to impose the unit rule, which would have 
given Grant the solid vote of New York, Illinois, and 
Pennsylvania, and with the impetus thus gained have 
carried him at once across the line. They failed in 
other arbitrary schemes which gave rise to many 
hours of strategy and hot debate. 



544 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Conkling led their forces on the floor, showing 
superb contempt for opposition, stirring resentment 
among friends of Blaine and other candidates, repel- 
ling by his domineering ways those whom another 
would have tried with tact to win, questioning their 
party loyalty, sneering at their political consistency, 
exulting in their hate. No one at all familiar with 
convention records is unfamiliar with the speech in 
which he introduced Grant's name, the opening lines 
of doggerel transmuted into eloquence by his auda- 
cious, dominating personality: — 

" And when asked what State he hails from, 
Our sole reply shall be, 
He hails from Appomattox 
And its famous apple tree." 

Convention oratory in its extravagance and swift 
impressions is a thing apart, and Conkling's ranks 
among its great examples, but there were sentences 
in this speech of his which were to be remembered 
beyond the moment: "His services attest his great- 
ness." "His fame was earned, not alone by things 
written and said, but by the arduous greatness of 
things done." "To him immeasurably more than to 
any other man is due the fact that every paper 
dollar is at last as good as gold." "When he refused 
to receive Denis Kearney of California, he meant 
that communism, lawlessness, and disorder, although 



THE THIRD TERM 515 

it might stalk high-headed and dictate law to a whole 
city, would always find a foe in him." 1 

1 " From his first utterance in the convention to the last, Mr. 
Conkling's manner was one studied taunt to his opponents. 
Nothing approaching it in arrogance and insolence has been wit- 
nessed in a political convention, either before or since. If there had 
been any chance of a compromise of one faction in favor of the 
other, he destroyed it utterly in the first half-hour. 

His first act was to move a resolution binding the members of 
the convention to support the nominee, whoever he might be. In 
doing this he took pains to intimate with unmistakable plainness 
his belief that the Blaine men would bolt in case Grant was nomi- 
nated, unless they were pledged in advance not to do so. This 
resolution was adopted, but the debate upon it made him the most 
unpopular man in the convention with the supporters of all other 
candidates than Grant, and thus debarred the latter from hope of 
recruits. His next important effort was to have the unit rule en- 
forced upon all delegations in order that a majority in each should 
be able to cast the solid vote of the State for the candidate of their 
choice. In this effort he was as offensive as he had been in his 
previous one. A long chapter might be filled with Mr. Conkling's 
astounding arrogance. . . . 

" In his speech nominating Grant he went out of his way to give 
mortal offense to the Blaine forces and to all other elements of the 
convention that were opposing Grant. In his written copy of the 
speech, which was given out in advance to the press, he had this 
simple sentence at the beginning: 'When asked whence comes 
our candidate, we say from Appomattox.' There is dignity, sim- 
plicity, and dramatic force in that sentence, which is certainly not 
to be found in the ' improved ' version which seems to have been 
an inspiration of the moment. 

" When the balloting began and it was his duty as chairman of 
the New York delegation to announce its vote, he did so with 
studied insolence toward the anti-Grant members. His favorite 
formula was: ' Two of the New York delegates, Mr. Chairman, are 
said to be for Mr. Sherman, seventeen for Mr. Blaine, fifty-one 
are for Grant.' He repeated this with slight variations till the 
chairman of the West Virginia delegation mimicked his manner and 



540 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

For thirty-six ballots, and for two days, the "Old 
Guard" battled, holding their lines with a stern dis- 
cipline never rivaled before or since. Others weak- 
ened here and there as the maneuvering went on — 
not they. On the first ballot they threw to Grant 304 
votes. In the two days they did not fall below 302, 
and even on the thirty-fifth ballot, after the tide 
began to set toward Garfield, they were 313. On the 
last ballot, when the stampede was on, their line re- 
mained unbroken, and the 306 who voted at the very 
end for Grant have won their place in history. 

Garfield, who had entered the convention pledged 
to Sherman, who had led the forces against Conkling 
on the floor, and who from the beginning had re- 
ceived a single vote in almost every ballot, was nomi- 
nated by the friends of Blaine in a resistless rush 
which some said had long been prearranged, although 
the evidence of this was never clear. To mollify the 
"Old Guard," Arthur, whom Grant had made Col- 
lector of the Port of New York and who had been 
removed by Hayes, was nominated for Vice-Presi- 
dent. Conkling would have spurned the sop when the 
New York delegation was requested to select a man, 

method so perfectly that the whole convention roared. After that 
he did not venture on further repetition, but resorted to such say- 
ings as that a member who was absent was possibly 'meditating 
some new form of treachery.' " (Bishop, Presidential dominations 
and Elections, pp. 80-84.) 



THE THIRD TERM 547 

but Arthur, who was a delegate-at-large, whispered 
to Conkling that he would like the place — a hint 
which had far-reaching consequences. 

Through it all Grant went about his business at 
Galena. Conkling, in nominating him, with a covert 
sneer at Blaine had said: "He has no place; and 
official influence has not been used for him. Without 
patronage, without emissaries, without committees, 
without bureaux,, without telegraph wires running 
from his house or from the seats of influence to this 
convention, without appliances, without electioneer- 
ing contrivances, without effort on his part, Grant's 
name is on his country's lips." 

This was all true. During the convention, while 
bulletins were coming in, he spent his time with two 
or three at Rowley's office. When word arrived that 
Conkling's lines on Appomattox had been greeted by 
a storm of cheers which lasted half an hour, he went 
home saying to his son with something like a sigh: 
"I am afraid I am going to be nominated." Through- 
out the hours of balloting he gave no sign. When he 
was told about the final vote, he brushed the ashes 
from his cigar, said, "Garfield is a good man. I am 
glad of it. Good-night, gentlemen," and walked 
home without another word. But he was not im- 
pervious to defeat. He was hurt to think that with 
the Cameron letter in their hands the "Old Guard" 



548 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

let him go so far. "My friends have not been honest 
with me," he said. "I could not afford to be de- 
feated. They should not have placed me in nomina- 
tion unless they felt perfectly sure of my success." 
And some whom he thought had not played him fair 
he never quite forgave — among them Washburne, 
who let his own name be used to divide Logan's 
strength in Illinois. 



CHAPTER XLVII 

THE END 

When Grant left the White House he should have 
said good-bye to politics. That was a game in which 
he was not qualified to play; he would have been 
happier if he had frankly recognized the truth. But 
he had friends to whom he felt under obligation and 
for their sake he bared his dignity to his successors in 
the Presidency, laying it open to rebuff. During most 
of Hayes's term Grant watched the Administration 
from abroad. He did not sympathize with Hayes's 
course in Louisiana and South Carolina, abandoning 
the local governments while profiting himself by 
practically the same returns as those on which both 
Chamberlain and Packard based their claims. 

Not only did Hayes reverse Grant's Southern 
policy, but he alienated Conkling by the summary 
removal of Cornell and Arthur from the New York 
Custom House. During his Administration there was 
a general softening of party fiber. 

After Garfield's nomination Grant went to Colo- 
rado. He sent no message of congratulation. Many 
thought that he would sulk; some even that he 
would support Hancock, his former comrade in arms. 



550 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

But in September, when things looked blue for 
Garfield, he publicly declared his purpose to support 
the ticket, and brought Conkling into line, with 
others of the Stalwart group. Grant and Conkling 
both went on the stump — for Grant had learned to 
speak in public while abroad. After the election, for 
the result of which he felt himself in large part re- 
sponsible, he was not asked for his advice and did not 
tender it. He was displeased and mortified when told 
that Blaine was booked to head the Cabinet, yet went 
to Washington after the 4th of March and pledged 
Garfield his support. But quickly came the Robert- 
son appointment in New York, the resignation of 
Piatt and Conkling from the Senate by way of pro- 
test, and the ill-fated struggle for their reelection. 

Robertson, who had led the fight against Grant in 
the New York delegation at Chicago, was especially 
obnoxious, and Grant strongly sympathized with 
Conkling in the feud. He was angered, too, because 
without consulting him Garfield had made a place for 
Merritt, the deposed New York collector, by arbi- 
trarily transferring his own particular appointees 
abroad. 1 

1 " In their letter of resignation, .addressed to Governor Cornell 
on May 14, 1881, Senators Conkling and Piatt say: — 'Some 
weeks ago the President sent to the Senate in a group the nomi- 
nations of several persons for public offices already filled. One of 
these offices is the collectorship of the port of New York, now held 
by General Merritt; another is the consul-generalship at London, 



THE END 551 

Grant was in Mexico that spring, whence he wrote 
in May: "I am completely disgusted with Garfield's 
course. It is too late now for him to do anything to 
restore him to my confidence. I will never again lend 
my active aid to the support of a presidential candi- 
date who has not strength enough to appear before a 
convention as a candidate. . . . Garfield has shown 
that he is not possessed of the backbone of an angle- 
worm. 1 hope his nominations may be defeated." His 
feeling against Garfield was generally known through 
personal letters which slipped into print. When Gar- 
field was shot, Grant for a time, like Conkling, was a 
target for the people's wrath, which had hardly died 
away when in September he followed Garfield's 
coffin, as he had followed those of Sumner, Motley, 
and Greeley — each in turn. 

now held by General Badeau; another is charge d'affaires to Den- 
mark, held by Mr. Cramer; another is the mission to Switzerland, 
held by Mr. Fish, a son of the former distinguished Secretary of 
State. ... All these officers save only Mr. Cramer are citizens of 
New York. It was proposed to displace them all, not for any al- 
leged fault of theirs, or for any alleged need or advantage of the 
public service, but in order to give the great office of Collector of 
the Port of New York to Mr. William H. Robertson as a " re- 
ward " for certain acts of his said to have " aided in making the 
nomination of General Garfield possible." The chain of removals 
thus proposed was broken by General Badeau's promptly declin- 
ing to accept the new place to which he was sent.' A protest 
against the change in collectorship signed by Arthur, Conkling, 
Piatt, Postmaster-General James, and Governor Cornell, had been 
addressed to the President and ignored." (A. R. Conkling, Life 
and Letters of R. Conkling, pp. 639-40.) 



552 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

With Arthur he was at first on cordial terms and 
Arthur freely asked him for advice. At his suggestion 
Frelinghuysen was appointed Secretary of State, and 
Governor Morgan of New York was asked to take the 
Treasury. Morgan declined, and Grant proposed 
John Jacob Astor, first for the Treasury and then 
for Minister to England, but neither suggestion was 
adopted. Before long Arthur came to shun his Stal- 
wart friends, perhaps because he felt that they pre- 
sumed on old association. He wanted to be President 
in his own right, and to accomplish this, saw the ne- 
cessity for different ties. That was a trait entirely 
foreign to Grant's nature, the sort of thing he could 
not understand. Through all his life he had been 
loyal to his friends even to the peril of his own good 
name. 

Invited to the White House for a visit, he was be- 
set by satellites and relatives begging him to urge 
upon the President their claims for office or for favor, 
and he good-naturedly yielded to their importunities 
till Arthur plainly showed displeasure and at times 
evaded him. He wanted his friend General Beyle 
made Secretary of the Navy. Arthur appointed in 
his stead William E. Chandler, who as the friend of 
Blaine had been a leading factor in the defeat of 
Grant for a third term. After that the coolness 
between Grant and Arthur grew. "He seems more 




GRANT AT SIXTY 

Photograph by Freilricks, New York, 1882 
From the collection of Frederick /fill Meserve 






THE END 553 

afraid of his enemies and through this fear more in- 
fluenced by them than guided either by his judgment, 
personal feelings, or friendly influences," Grant 
wrote in February, 1883, and a year later, on the 
eve of the National Convention, he wrote: "Arthur 
will probably go into the convention second in the 
number of supporters, when he would not probably 
have a single vote if it was not for his army of 
officials and the vacancies he has to fill." 

He had a grievance, not due to patronage, but to 
Arthur's failure to right what Grant had come to 
look on as a wrong — his own refusal while President 
to allow Fitz John Porter a second trial. Since then, 
through a more thorough study of the evidence, he 
had become convinced that Porter was innocent of 
the charge of which he had been convicted by court- 
martial during the war. The sentence having been 
reversed at last by the board of which Schofield was 
the head, Grant worked hard to put the bill through 
Congress authorizing the President to restore Porter 
to his former rank, and when Arthur vetoed the bill 
on the ground that Congress had infringed upon 
the executive prerogative in designating a person by 
name whom the President was to appoint, Grant did 
not hesitate publicly to criticize the motive behind 
the veto. As between Blaine and Arthur in 1884, 
Grant preferred the nomination of Blaine, but owing 



554 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to his illness he did not vote for him. A year before 
the election he had written: "The Republican Party, 
to be saved, must have a decisive, declared policy. It 
has now no observable policy except to peddle out 
patronage to soreheads, in order to bring them back 
into the fold, and avoid any positive declarations 
upon all leading questions." l In his political convic- 
tions Grant was a Stalwart to the end. 

Grant had no sooner come back from his trip 
abroad than he began to think about a livelihood. 
He was obliged to turn his hand to making money, a 
trick in which he never had shown skill. Just before 
coming East from Colorado he had written: "One 
thing is certain; I must do something to supple- 
ment my income, or continue to live in Galena or 
on a farm. I have not got the means to live in a 
city." 

He always had a lively interest in Mexico, and 
now, after the third term episode, his friend Rom- 
ero, for years the Mexican Minister in Washington, 
joined with him in organizing a company, of which 
Grant became president, the purpose of which was to 
build a railroad south to the Guatemalan border. 
The enterprise was not successful, but in 1882, at 
Frelinghuysen's hint, Arthur made him a commis- 
sioner to negotiate a commercial treaty with Mexico, 
1 Grant in Peace. Badeau, p. 34J. 



THE END 555 

an appointment which he accepted solely because of 
his ambition to establish closer business and political 
relations between the two Republics. 

The treaty was concluded. Grant would have had 
quick action by our Senate; for delay he knew would 
give to foreign interests an opportunity to influence 
adversely the Mexican authorities, but the Adminis- 
tration did nothing further. The treaty was not 
ratified, and no more was heard of it. 

Here ends the record of Grant's public service. Had 
this been all, it would have been a tame and futile 
termination of a great career which had its crown in 
the tumultuous welcome home after his triumphal 
march around the world. In three years he had fallen 
in the popular esteem. His fatal acquiescence in the 
third term move; his meddling with the patronage; 
his good-natured readiness to place his influence at 
the disposal of his friends, had all contributed to blur 
his fame. He had gone into Wall Street and the 
people knew it. He thought that he was making 
money. So did they. Prosperity alarms idolatry; 
incense burns grudgingly on the Stock Exchange; 
and Grant in this followed the way of other heroes. 
But his life, already packed with contrasts, was to un- 
dergo one more swift transformation. The few months 
left him were to bring both tragedy and triumph, 



556 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

misfortune in the end restoring him to his own right- 
ful province in the people's love. 

When Grant went abroad he entrusted to Ulysses 
S. Grant, Jr., what property he had, and the son, who 
was supposed to have a business head, enlarged the 
trust. He had married the daughter of Senator 
Chaffee, a Colorado millionaire, and had settled in 
New York, where in 1879 he became acquainted 
with young Ferdinand Ward, just blossoming as a 
Napoleon of the Street. Through some of Ward's 
ventures he made money for the General, which 
enabled Grant to complete his trip around the world. 
In the fall of 1880, Ward proposed a private banking 
firm to do a Wall Street business under the style of 
Grant & Ward, he to be financial agent, young 
Grant to be an active partner, with the General and 
James F. Fish, Ward's father-in-law, the President of 
the Marine Bank of Brooklyn, as silent partners. 
The new firm ranked high; Ward was the marvel of 
the Street; he had unbounded credit; the market 
boomed; the firm's investors received amazing divi- 
dends. From operations in stocks, bonds, and railway 
contracts, the firm of Grant & Ward, beginning with 
a paid-in-capital of $400,000, mostly contributed by 
Chaffee, and other connections of the Grants, — both 
Fred and Jesse had married well and settled in New 
York, — had in three years acquired a rating of 






THE END 557 

$15,000,000 and a deposit of nearly a million in Fish's 
bank. Grant having put in all his money paid no at- 
tention to the business details, nor did his son. They 
simply saw their income pouring in and trusted 
Ward implicitly. But while Ward talked to them 
of railway contracts and huge rates of interest for 
emergency loans to subcontractors, he talked to cus- 
tomers about Grant's influence in getting contracts 
from the Government — a form of business which 
Grant expressly stipulated the firm should never un- 
dertake. He knew that this would be an impropriety. 

"I had been President of the United States," he 
later testified, "and I did not think it was suitable 
for me to have my name connected with Govern- 
ment contracts, and I knew that there was no large 
profit in them except by dishonest measures. There 
are some men who get Government contracts year 
in and year out, and whether they manage their 
affairs dishonestly to make a profit or not, they are 
sometimes supposed to, and I did not think it was 
any place for me." 

Grant, all unconscious of impending fate, was 
looking forward to prosperity in his remaining years. 
Some of his nearest friends were men of wealth, and 
now he felt that he could associate with them on even 
terms. He had a handsome house in Sixty-sixth 
Street, near Fifth Avenue, and there, surrounded by 



558 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

his family and trophies, he planned to end his days in 
profitable ease. Besides his generous dividends from 
Grant & Ward, he had a $15,000 income from a fund 
subscribed for him by New York financiers. He had 
no public cares or aspirations, no lingering restless- 
ness for power; his skies were clear of clouds; he was 
content. 

The day before Christmas in December, 1883, he 
slipped on the icy sidewalk before his house, crush- 
ing the muscles of his leg. He did not leave his bed 
for weeks. Then for months he hobbled about 
on crutches, recovering his strength somewhat in 
Washington and Fort Monroe, but never quite re- 
gaining his health. At home again in April, still lame 
but prosperous, he drove about and went downtown 
on business, free from financial worry. 

One Sunday evening, May 4, 1884, Ward came to 
see him, told him the Marine Bank was in trouble, 
that the City Chamberlain had drawn heavily late 
the afternoon before, imperiling the bank's reserve, 
and unless $400,000 could be raised at once the bank 
must close its doors on Monday morning, tying up 
the firm's deposit of $660,000 and threatening ruin. 
He had himself raised $250,000, but could go no 
farther and Grant must raise the rest. This was new 
business for the General. He did not know where to 
turn, but Ward suggested W. H. Vanderbilt, and 



THE END 559 

Grant saw Vanderbilt that night, told him the story, 
and obtained from him $150,000 — not for the sake of 
the Marine Bank or of the firm of Grant & Ward, as 
Vanderbilt assured him, but as a personal loan. The 
next day the loan was paid, so Grant supposed, 
through the firm's check drawn on the bank. On 
Tuesday morning, when Grant limped into the firm's 
office, he was stunned by his son's greeting: "Grant 
& Ward have failed and Ward has fled! " He turned 
away without a word, ascended slowly to his own 
private room, and late that afternoon the cashier 
found him sitting there, close to his desk, clasping the 
arms of his chair convulsively, head bowed. 

Before night it was known that every dollar he 
possessed was swept away. The firm had no deposits 
in the bank. The securities Ward talked about were 
worthless. All the Grants were pauperized; their 
entire fortunes were tied up with the firm. Trades- 
men's bills came pouring in, and had it not been for 
prompt and generous action by a stranger, 1 who 
forced Grant to accept a loan "on account of my 
share for services ending April, 1865," he could not 
have bought provisions for a meal. He was too proud 
and silent to appeal for credit then. 

In order to save something from the vultures, 
Vanderbilt insisted on security for his personal loan, 
1 Charles Wood, of Lansingburg, New York. 



560 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and to hiin Grant assigned his farm, his wife's real 
estate in Philadelphia and Chicago, and all his per- 
sonal property — including the trophies of the war, 
his medals, swords, and uniforms. The debt to Van- 
derbilt was one of honor. With him it had prece- 
dence over obligations of the firm of Grant & Ward. 

Vanderbilt afterwards tried to transfer the property 
to Mrs. Grant, but she refused his offer, except as to 
the trophies, which she accepted in trust, to be placed 
at the disposal of the Government. For their con- 
spiracy to defraud, Fish was sentenced to seven years 
in prison, Ward to ten. 

Stripped of his livelihood, harassed by obligations, 
chagrined by failure, smarting under unjust stings, 
feeble in body, with age creeping on, Grant had 
again to face the world. He could no longer justify his 
simple faith in human nature. "I have made it the 
rule of my life," he said, "to trust a man long after 
other people gave him up; but I don't see how I can 
ever trust any human being again." Yet his bitter- 
ness of soul was sanctified. Without it history could 
not record the last fine chapter of his contradictory 
career, shedding a halo over all that went before. 
His bearing in adversity beatified him in the world's 
regard. 

Before his failure the "Century Magazine," which 
had begun its series on the battles of the Civil War, 



THE END 561 

had urged him to write the story of Shiloh or of the 
Wilderness. But he was not inclined to do it. Writing 
was not his trade. Now they came back with their 
proposal. It would divert his mind; he could earn 
money in this way; his need decided him. He wrote 
an article on Shiloh and was astonished at himself to 
find that he could make a story full of human interest 
as easily as he had once indited orders and reports. 
He had the faculty of narrative in an unusual degree, 
as he had often shown among his intimates; for all 
his life he was an entertaining talker, at times mo- 
nopolizing conversation in choice groups of friends. 
His stillness fell upon him only in public or with those 
he slightly knew. 

After Shiloh came Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and 
the Wilderness for the "Century," and from these 
grew the "Memoirs." He was absorbed in his new 
work, and urged on by the demand for more. Thus 
he occupied the summer at Long Branch, writing 
daily with the help of Badeau and his oldest son, who 
verified his records and combined his notes; but he 
was daily growing feebler, till in October on his return 
to town he became conscious of pains shooting 
through his throat. The physicians told him it was 
cancer. Soon he could not swallow without torture. 
He had no wish to live if he could not recover. For a 
time he did not care to write or talk. He "often sat 



562 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

for hours propped up in his chair, with his hands 
clasped, looking at the blank wall before him, silent, 
contemplating the future; not alarmed, but solemn, at 
the prospect of pain and disease; and only death at 
the end. It was like a man gazing into his open 
grave. He was in no way discouraged," writes Ba- 
deau, " but the sight was to me the most appalling 
I have ever witnessed." 

Then there came a change. He grimly turned 
once more to his new work. He would complete his 
task for his own sake, his family, and those to whom 
he was in debt. The first money he received he sent 
the stranger who had given him the loan in May. 
But he could hardly hope to wipe out all his obliga- 
tions, and when in January came the doctor's final 
verdict that he could not recover, he was in mental 
agony; not that he had to die, but that he might not 
live till he had fully cleared his name. 

A bill had passed the Senate the preceding winter 
to restore his rank and place him on the retired list 
of the Army, but Arthur had hinted that he would 
veto it, as in the Fitz John Porter case, if Grant were 
to be restored by name. He felt this keenly and it 
contributed to his distress. 

Soon the world knew that he was dying and sym- 
pathy came pouring in from everywhere. The bill 
for his retirement, modified to meet the President's 



THE END 503 

objections, was revised, but was held up for party 
reasons in the House, the Democrats attempting to 
embarrass Arthur by forcing through the earlier bill, 
and thus compelling him to reverse himself or veto it. 
Congress was near its end, and Grant, who looked 
upon the measure as in some way a vindication, felt 
the rebuff. The bill was beaten in the House on 
February 16, the anniversary of Donelson. It was 
felt then that any day might be his last. The country 
was aroused and public sentiment prevailed. On the 
4th of March, in the closing hours of Congress, the 
bill, amended as Arthur wished, was rushed through 
House and Senate by unanimous consent, and Ar- 
thur sent in Grant's name just in time. Cleveland 
signed the new commission — the second act of his 
Administration. 

Grant's life thenceforward was a desperate fight 
with death. More than once the end seemed right at 
hand, and once the doctors thought that it had come. 
For months he could not lie in bed, but sat propped 
up in chairs, suffering excruciating pain. Even those 
with whom he had long been in feud now shared the 
universal sympathy. On the anniversary of the day 
that Richmond fell he dictated this message: "I 
am very much touched and grateful for the sym- 
pathy and interest manifested in me by my friends — 
and by those who have not hitherto been regarded as 



5G4 ULYSSES S. GRANT 

friends. I desire the good-will of all, whether hitherto 
friends or not." 

It is not necessary to prolong the story. Its plain 
recital cuts one like a knife. He kept at work upon 
his book, dictating when he could not speak above a 
whisper, more often penciling his sentences on pads. 
The passages he wrote in the last weeks were just and 
lucid. They read so simply that we can hardly realize 
how every paragraph was drenched in pain. In June 
they carried him to Mount McGregor, and there on 
July 23 he died. He did not drop his pencil till his 
work was done. Three weeks before his death, on 
July 2, he wrote to his physician, Dr. Douglass, a 
letter with which this record of his life may fittingly 
conclude: — 

"I ask you not to show this to any one, unless the 
physicians you consult with, until the end. Particu- 
larly, I want it kept from my family. ... I know 
that I gain strength some days, but when I do go 
back it is beyond where I started to improve. I 
think the chances are very decidedly in favor of 
your being able to keep me alive until the change of 
weather towards winter. Of course there are con- 
tingencies that might arise at any time that would 
carry me off suddenly. ... I would say, therefore, 
to you and your colleagues, to make me as com- 
fortable as you can. If it is within God's providence 



■ - ms mm m ; 




From the collection of Frederick Hill He 
GRANT WRITING HIS MEMOIRS AT MOUNT McGREGOR 



THE END 565 

that I should go now, I am ready to obey His call 
without a murmur. I should prefer going now to en- 
during my present suffering for a single day with- 
out hope of recovery. As I have stated, I am thank- 
ful for the providential extension of my time to 
enable me to continue my work. I am further thank- 
ful, and in a much greater degree thankful, because 
it has enabled me to see for myself the happy 
harmony which has so suddenly sprung up between 
those engaged but a few short years ago in deadly 
conflict. It has been an inestimable blessing to me to 
hear the kind expression towards me in person from 
all parts of our country, from people of all nationali- 
ties, of all religions and of no religion, of Confederates 
and of National troops alike, of soldiers' organiza- 
tions, of mechanical, scientific, religious, and other 
societies, embracing almost every citizen in the land. 
They have brought joy to my heart, if they have not 
effected a cure. So to you and your colleagues I 
acknowledge my indebtedness for having brought me 
through the valley of the shadow of death to enable 
me to witness these things." 

THE END 



INDEX 



Abbott, Josiah G., 513. 

Acquisition of territory, G.'s 
views on, 331. 

Adams, Charles Francis, Before 
and After the Treaty of Wash- 
ington, quoted, 289, 290; as 
Minister to Great Britain, de- 
mands reparation for damage 
caused by Alabama, etc., 293; 
quoted, on effect of Sumner's 
speech, 295 ; on Geneva Board 
of Arbitration, 310; quoted, 
on Sumner, 333; quoted, on 
himself as candidate for 
Liberal Republican nomina- 
tion, 414, 415; 282, 380, 412, 
413. 

Adams, Henry, The Gold Con- 
spiracy, 345. 

Agassiz, Louis, 291. 

Akerman, Amos T., Attorney- 
General, 326, 367, 386, 389. 

Alabama, reorganized state gov- 
ernment in, 230; in 1872, 460, 
461. 

Alabama claims, Johnson-Clar- 
endon Convention, 294, 295; 
Sumner's estimate of, 295-97; 
reopening of negotiations con- 
cerning, 302, 303; the Joint 
High Commission, 308, 309; 
the Geneva Arbitration and 
Award, 310. 

Alexander II, Czar, 535. 

Allen, John ("Private"), 465. 

Allen, William ("Fog-horn"), 
499. 

Allison, William B., 394. 

Ames, Adelbert, Governor of 
Mississippi, 464, 465, 466. 

Ames, Oakes, and the Credit 



Mobilier, 431 ff. ; censured by 
House, 434, 435. 

Amnesty, special acts for in- 
dividuals, 375, 376; G.'s spe- 
cial message on, 376 ; general, 
blocked by Sumner, is finally 
accomplished, 377, 378. 

Andrew, John A., 231, 291. 

Appomattox Court-House, meet- 
ing of G. and Lee at, 196 ff. 

Arbitration of international dis- 
putes, Treaty of Washington 
first triumph of principle of, 
309, 310; G. entitled to credit 
for establishing, 311. 

Argyle, Duchess of, 380. 

Arkansas, in 1872 and 1874, 
461-63. 

Arthur, Chester A., nominated 
for Vice-President in 1880, 
and why, 546, 547; as Presi- 
dent, G.'s relations with, 552- 
54; vetoes Fitz-John Porter 
bill, 553; 549, 562, 563. 

Ashley, James M., 320. 

Astor, John Jacob, 552. 

Atkinson, Edward, 412. 

Augur, C. C, 504. 

Babcock, Orville E., his mis- 
sion to San Domingo, 314; 
unauthorized, signs protocol 
providing for annexation to 
U.S., 315, 316; his second 
visit to San Domingo results 
in treaties for annexation, 
etc., 317; and the paving con- 
tracts, 476 ff. ; the center 
of Whiskey Ring scandal, 
£76 ff. ; indicted for conspiracy, 
481; G. comes to defense of, 



508 



INDEX 



483, 484; acquitted, 484, 485; 
his later relations with ('<., 
485; 125, 189, 281, 318, 320, 

323, 327, 390. 

Back Pay Grab. See Salary 
Grab. 

Badeau, Adam, his Military 
History of the U.S. quoted, on 
G., 147-49; his Grant in Peace 
quoted, 554; 125, 226, 274, 

324, 384, 538, 550 n., 561. 
Baez, Buenaventura, President 

of San Domingo, seeks inter- 
vention of U.S., 313; A. D. 
White quoted on, 313; 317. 

Baltimore, riots threatened at, 
in 1866, 243, 244. 

Bancroft, George, 234. 

Banks, Nathaniel P., 59, 118, 
123, 130, 133, 160, 161. 

Barnard, Mr. (whiskey scandal), 
478, 479. 

Bartlett, William F., 412. 

Baxter, Mr. (Arkansas), 461, 
462. 

Bayard, Thomas F., 513. 

Beale, Edward F., 552. 

Beauregard, G. P. T., succeeds 
to chief command at Shiloh on 
death of A. S. Johnston, 88, 
89; beaten in second day's 
battle, 91, 92; evacuates Cor- 
inth, 93; 84, 85, 96, 160, 171. 

Belknap, William W., Secretary 
of War, investigated by Con- 
gressional Committee, 488, 
489; impeached, and resigns, 
489, 490; Senate fails to con- 
vict, 490; 389, 470. 

Belknap, Mrs. W. W., 488, 489, 
490. 

Belmont, Ky., battle of, 63, 64, 
65. 

Bernard, Montagu, on Joint 
High Commission, 309. 

Bigelow, John, quoted, on G.'s 
first Cabinet, 282, 283; his 
Life of Tilden, 512. 



Bird, Frank W., 412. 

Bishop, J. B., Presidential Nomi- 
nations and Elections, 545 n. 

Bismarck, Prince Otto von, 
498 n., 535. 

Black Friday, 342 ff. 

Blaine, James G., why he failed 
of the nomination in l v 7i>, 
498, 499; his candidacy in 
1880, 537, 542, 544, 545 n., 
547; 433, 511, 541, 550, 552, 
553. 

Blair, Austin, 412. 

Blair, Francis P., Jr., 47, 359, 
409. 

"Bloody Shirt," waved by Re- 
publicans in campaign of 
1876, 500. 

Borie, Adolph E., 278. 

Boston Herald, 356. 

Boutwell, George S., Secretary 
of the Treasury, 277; and the 
corner in gold, 343 ff. ; his deal- 
ings with the public debt, 351 ; 
433, 439, 445. 

Bowers, T. S., 125, 163. 

Bowles, Samuel, quoted on G., 
379; his character, 379, 380; 
on tariff act of 1872, 397, 398; 
382,412,415. 

Boynton, Henry V., on G. and 
the Whiskey Ring, 485 n., 
488 n. 

Bradley, Justice Joseph P., and 
the second Legal Tender de- 
cision, 354-56; selected as 
fifth Supreme Court mem- 
ber of Electoral Commission 
(1877), 513; his opinion in 
Florida case, 514; denounced 
by Democrats, 515; 492. 

Bragg, Braxton, at Shiloh, 88, 
89, 90; 107, 108, 130, 131, 132, 
136, 138. 

BrinkerhorT, Jacob, 418. 

Bristow, Benjamin H., Secretary 
of Treasury, 441; and the 
Whiskey Ring frauds, 476 ff. ; 



INDEX 



569 



G. displeased with his handling 
of the cases, 485, 486; resigns, 
487; as candidate for presi- 
dential nomination in 1876, 
498 and n. 

Brodhead, James O., 481. 

Brooks, James, 434. 

Brooks, Mr. (Arkansas), 461, 
462. 

Brown, B. Gratz, nominated for 
Governor of Missouri, by Re- 
publican dissenters in 1872, 
409. 

Brown, John, of Ossawatomie, 8. 

Brown, Owen, father of John, 8. 

Bruce, Blanche K., 361. 

Bryant, William Cullen, quoted, 
on nomination of Greeley, 
416; 412, 418. 

Buchanan, James, 38, 72, 270, 
327. 

Buchanan, R. C, forces G.'s re- 
tirement, from the army in 
1854, 35. 

Buckner, Simon B., at West 
Point with G., 21 ; in Mexican 
War, 30; helps G. in time of 
need, 37; in command at 
Bowling Green, 69 ; takes com- 
mand at Donelson, and sur- 
renders to G., 73, 74. 

Buell, Don Carlos, at West 
Point with G., 21; at Shiloh, 
90-92; 57, 69, 70, 77, 78, 84, 
85, 86, 93, 94, 95, 133, 150. 

Bullock, Rufus B., Governor of 

Georgia, 364, 365, 366. 
Burnside, Ambrose E., 130, 131, 

136, 137, 139, 150. 
Butler, Benjamin F., at New 
Orleans, 104; his blunders 
in command of Army of the 
James upset G.'s plans, 170, 
171 ; his quarrels with " Baldy" 
Smith, 174, 175; alleged by 
Smith to have blackmailed G., 
175; sent home "for the good 
of the service," 175, 176; G.'s 



friendship for, during his 
presidency, a mystery, 437; 
Butler's Book, 437; controls 
patronage in Mass., 437, 438; 
selects Simmons for Boston 
collectorship, 438; had he a 
"hold" on G.? 438; and the 
Sanborn contracts, 439 ff. ; 
59, 159, 161, 215, 272, 398. 

Butler, Matthew C, 361 n. 

Butterfield, Daniel, Assistant 
Treasurer at N.Y., and the 
"Gold Conspiracy," 344 ff.; 
forced to resign, 346. 

Cabinet of Pres. Johnson, and 
the quarrel with G., 264, 265, 
266. 

Cabinet, G's first, 275-78. 

Cabral, Jose M. (San Domingo), 
312, 313. 

"Casarism," 423, 457, 521. 

Cameron, J. Donald, 496, 537, 
540, 543, 547. 

Cameron, Simon, 145, 320, 385, 
387, 401. 

Campaign of 1876, the, 500, 501. 

Campbell, John A., 188. 

Campbell, Mr., Minister to 
Mexico, 245, 247. 

Canada, annexation of, sug- 
gested, 297; real obstacle to 
annexation, 297, 298; Sumner 
demands Great Britain's with- 
drawal from, 307, 308. 

Carpenter, Francis B., 168. 

Carpenter, Matthew H., de- 
fends G. against Sumner, 423, 
424; 401. 

Carpet-baggers, 272, 358, 359. 

Casserly, Eugene, 321. 

Castelar, Emilio, 524. 

Catacazy, M-, 527. 

Cavour, Count, 498 n. 

Cedar Creek, battle of, 180. 

Century Magazine, G. writes 
stories of his battles for, 560, 
561; 499 n., 515 n. 



570 



INDEX 



Chaffee, Jerome B., 556. 

Chaffee, Miss, 556. 

Chamberlain, Daniel H., Gov- 
ernor of South Carolina, 472, 
518, 549. 

Chandler, William E., first to 
claim Hayes's election, 501, 
502 n.; 552. 

Chandler, Zachariah, Secretary 
of the Interior, 491 and n.; 
213, 215, 297, 328, 380, 384, 
387, 401, 500, 501, 502 and n., 
503. 

Chapultepec, battle of, 28. 

Chase, Salmon P., distrustful of 
G.'s success, in 1864, 169; as 
Chief Justice, his majority 
opinion in Hepburn vs. Gris- 
wold, 352, 353; suggests that 
Court was packed with a view 
to overruling that decision, 
355; his death, 492; 223, 356, 
398. 

Chattanooga, G. arrives at head- 
quarters at, 136, 137; battle of, 
137-40. 

Chicago, whiskey frauds in, 476, 
477. 

Chicago Tribune, 412, 413. 

Chickamauga Creek, battle of, 
130, 131, 132. 

Childs, George W., his Recollec- 
tions quoted, 519 n.; 384, 404, 
424, 425. 

Cincinnati Commercial, 412, 413. 

City Point, G.'s headquarters at, 
a secondary Union capital, 
188. 

Civil Rights bill, of 1866, passed 
over Johnson's veto, 236. 

Civil Rights bill, of 1875, de- 
clared unconstitutional, 463; 
377, 378. 

Civil Service Commission, cre- 
ated, 400; appropriation for, 
withheld, 400 ff. 

Civil-Service reform, in party 
platforms of 1872, 419, 420. 



Clarendon, George W. F. Villiers, 
Earl of, 294, 300. 

Cleveland, Grover, signs G.'s 
new commission as lieutenant- 
general, 563. 

Clifford, Justice Nathan, 353, 
513. 

Clymer, Heister, 489. 

Cobden Club, 395. 

Cockburn, Sir Alexander, on 
Geneva Board, 310. 

Cold Harbor, battle of, 165, 166; 
G.'s admission concerning, 
165. 

Colfax, Schuyler, Vice-President 
with G., 270, 271; 421, 433. 

Colfax, La., massacre of negroes 
at, 468. 

Columbus, Ky., seized by Polk, 
61. 

Comstock, Cyrus B., 125, 259, 
263. 

Confederacy, the, condition and 
prospects of, when G. as- 
sumed chief command, \b2ff.; 
in sore straits in winter of 
1864, 187, 188. 

Confederates, amnesty granted 
to, 375, 376. 

Congress, Thirty-Eighth, fails to 
recognize reconstituted state 
government of Louisiana, 
210, 211. 

Thirty-Ninth, opposition to 
Johnson's policy in, organized 
by Stevens and Sumner, 231; 
refuses to admit members 
from reconstructed States, 
234, 235; passes Freedmen's 
Bureau bill, but sustains veto, 
235; overrides veto of Civil 
Rights bill, resolution leading 
to 14th Amendment, new 
Freedmen's Bureau bill, 236, 
Reconstruction Act (1867), 
and Tenure of Office Act, 248, 
249; Reconstruction measures 
of, reviewed, 250. 



INDEX 



571 



Fortieth, adverse results of 
elections to, 240; strips John- 
son of authority under Recon- 
struction acts, 251; Senate re- 
fuses assent to suspension of 
Stanton, 259; House passes 
resolutions of impeachment 
of Johnson, 259, 269; trial of 
Johnson, in Senate, results in 
acquittal, 269, 270; passes 
resolution concerning removal 
of civil officers in the South, 
272. 

Forty-First, Senate refuses 
to ratify Johnson-Clarendon 
Convention, 295, and San 
Domingo treaties, 320-323; 
Senate appoints committee 
to investigate San Domingo 
matter, 326 ff. ; Cuban ques- 
tion debated in, 339; passes 
act to strengthen public credit, 
341 ; bars representatives from 
Georgia, 364; passes "En- 
forcement Acts," 369 ff., and 
many special amnesty acts, 
375, 376. 

Forty-Second, Senate rati- 
fies Treaty of Washington, 
309; Senate deposes Sumner 
from chairmanship of Foreign 
Relations Committee, 333, 
385; passes act to enforce pro- 
visions of 14th Amendment, 
373; House passes general 
amnesty bill, 378; tariff bills 
passed by, 397; passes Civil- 
Service Reform Act, 400, but 
withholds appropriation for 
Commission, 400 ff.; investi- 
gates Credit Mobilier scandal, 
433, 434; passes salary in- 
crease bill, 435, 436. 

Forty-Third, repeals salary 
increase, as to Members of 
Congress, 437; investigates 
Sanborn contracts, 440; and 
the currency, 445 ff.; passes 



inflation bill, 448, which G. 
vetoes, 451; passes Resump- 
tion Act, 454, 455; passes 
Civil Rights bill, 463; House 
investigates Belknap case 
and passes resolutions of im- 
peachment, 488, 489; Senate 
acquits Belknap, and why, 
490. 

Forty-Fourth, House con- 
trolled by Democrats, 452; 
House had made itself obnox- 
ious, 496; House passes anti- 
third-term resolution, 497 n.; 
and the disputed election of 
1876, 507 ff.; bill creating 
Electoral Commission re- 
ported by special committee, 
and passed, 510, 511; Demo- 
crats in, and the threat to de- 
lay count of vote until after 
March 4, 515, 516. 

Forty-Eighth, passes bill 
making it possible to restore 
G. to his former rank, etc., 
563. 

Conkling, A. B., Life and Letters 
of Roscoe Conkling, 550 n. 

Conkling, Roscoe, declines 
Chief-Justiceship, 493; leads 
G.'s supporters in Conven- 
tion of 1880, 544; J. B. Bishop 
quotedon hisleadership,545n.; 
takes stump for Garfield, 550; 
resigns Senatorship and seeks 
reelection, 550 and n.; 328, 
384, 401, 410, 433, 496, 498 
and n., 499, 511, 519 n., 537, 
540, 546, 547, 549, 551. 

Constitution, Fourteenth Amend- 
ment, seceding States refuse 
to ratify, 241; act to enforce 
provisions of, 373; 236, 237, 
364, 365. 

Fifteenth Amendment, rati- 
fied, 335, 368; 273, 363, 365. 

Cooke, Jay, & Co., failure of, and 
its consequences, 444 ff. 



572 



INDEX 



Corbin, Abel R., G.'s brother- 
in-law, and the "Gold Con- 
spiracy," 343 ff.; 274. 

Corbin, Mrs. Abel R., 348. 

Corinth, Miss., taken by Hal- 
leck, 96; 84, 85, 93, 106, 107. 

Cornell, Alonzo B., 549, 550 n. 

Coushatta, La., 468, 409. 

Cox, Jacob D., Secretary of the 
Interior, 278, 386; resigns, 
386-88; joins Liberal Repub- 
lican movement, 389, 412; 
315, 316, 418, 490 and n. 

Cramer, Michael J., G.'s brother- 
in-law, appointed Minister to 
Denmark, 391, 392; 550 n. 

Credit Mobilier scandal, the, 
431 ff. 

Creswell, John A. J., Post- 
master-General, 278. 

Crittenden, Thomas L., 130. 

Crosby, Sheriff (Miss.), 464. 

Cuba, problem of, 336 ff. 

Cuban insurgents, issuance of 
proclamation recognizing bel- 
ligerency of, blocked by Fish, 
337-39. 

Cumberland, Army of the, 
130 ff. 

Currency, G.'s views on, 350, 
445, 446; inflation bill, vetoed 
by G., 448-51. 

Curtis, George W., commends 
G.'s attack on spoils system, 
399, 403, 404; 103, 380, 384, 
393, 505. 

Cushing, Caleb, his part in re- 
opening negotiations with 
Great Britain, 302; nomina- 
tion of, for Chief Justice, with- 
drawn, 494, 495 ; 310. 

Dana, Charles A., his Recollec- 
tions of the Civil War quoted, 
on Rawlins and G., 126, 127, 
and on G., 129; sent by 
Stanton "to spy out the 
Western armies," etc., 126; a 



factor in fixing G.'s reputa- 
tion, 127; Lincoln's support of 
G. largely due to his reports, 
128; trusted by G., 128; after 
Vic-ksburg suggests G. as com- 
mander-in-chief of Armies of 
the West, 129; quoted on 
Missionary Ridge, 138, 139, 
and on Meade, 157; 119, 132, 
133, 134. 

Dana, Richard H., Jr., quoted 
on G. in Washington, 146, 
147; 291. 

Davis, Charles H., 104. 

Davis, Justice David, candi- 
date for nomination of Liberal 
Republicans in 1872, 413, 414; 
354, 513, 515 and n. 

Davis, Jefferson, leaves Rich- 
mond, 193; captured, 200; 84, 
88, 162, 173, 188, 205, 363, 
377, 494. 

Davis, John C. Bancroft, 310, 
337. 

Dawes, Henry L., 379, 397. 

De Grey, George F. S. Robin- 
son, Earl, on Joint High Com- 
mission, 309. 

Delano, Columbus, Secretary of 
the Interior, 387, 389, 490, 491. 

Democratic Convention of 1872, 
indorses Greeley, 421. 

Democrats, control House in 
44th Congress, 452; responsi- 
ble for passage of bill creating 
Electoral Commission, 511; 
angered by its decision, 514, 
they denounce Bradley, 515, 
and threaten to delay the 
count by filibustering, 515, 
516. 

Dent, Frederick T., G.'s brother- 
in-law, 25, 390. 

Dent, Julia, becomes G.'s wife, 
25-27. And see Grant, Mrs. 
Julia Dent. 

Dent, "Colonel," G.'s father-in- 
law, 25, 27, 37, 38, 42. 



INDEX 



573 



Donelson, Fort, strategic posi- 
tion of, 69; attacked and 
taken by force under G., 72- 
74; capture of, the first sub- 
stantial victory for the North, 
75. 

Douglas, Stephen A., 270. 

Douglass, Dr., attends G. in his 
last illness, 564, 565. 

Dyer, Mr., and the whiskey 
frauds, 478 ff. 

Early, Jubal A., his raid in 
July, 1864, 172; beaten by 
Sheridan in the Valley, 179, 
180. 

Edmunds, George F., 370, 510, 
511, 513, 542. 

Election of 1868, 270, 271. 

Election of 1872, 425, 427. 

Election of 1876, dispute over, 
501 ff. 

Elections of Representatives in 
Congress placed under federal 
control, 371. 

Electoral College, vote of, in 
1876, 507. 

Electoral Commission (1877) 
bill creating passes both 
Houses, 510, 511; composi- 
tion of, 513; decision of, 514, 
515; G.'s share in creation of, 
and securing acquiescence in 
its decision, 519 and n., 520. 

Elliott, Robert, 361. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 291. 

"Enforcement Acts," passed by 

41st Congress, 370 ff. And 

see Supreme Court of the 

U.S. 

England, G.'s reception in, 534, 

535. And see Great Britain. 
Erie Railroad, 342. 
Europe, G.'s visit to (1877), 
534 ff. 

.Evans, Mr., and the Belknap 

scandal, 488, 489. 
Evarts, William M., 310, 537. 



Ewell, Richard S., at West 
Point with G., 21 ; quoted, 23; 
193, 194. 

Farragut, David G., takes New 
Orleans, 104, and Mobile, 177; 
238. 

Fenianism, 294, 297, 307. 

Fenton, Reuben E., 410, 411. 

Ferry, Thomas W., 447. 

Fessenden, William P., 222. 

Field, Justice Stephen J., 353, 
513. 

Fillmore, Millard, 535. 

Financial Affairs. See Currency, 
Greenbacks, Specie Payments. 

Fish, Hamilton, succeeds Wash- 
burne as Secretary of State, 
282; relations with Sumner, 
285 ; his instructions to Motley 
as Minister to Great Britain, 
299, 300; censures Motley for 
disregarding instructions, 301 ; 
opens negotiations with Rose, 
302, 303; agrees on basis of 
negotiations, 306 ; Sumner's 
note to, 307, 308; on Joint 
High Commission, 308; and 
Babcock's "queer perform- 
ance" in San Domingo, 315; 
his difficult position, 316; 
resigns, but yields on San 
Domingo, 317; demands Mot- 
ley's resignation, 323, 324; on 
the reasons for Motley's re- 
moval, 332; Sumner's break 
with, 332, 333; and the Cuban 
problem, 336 ff. ; blocks issu- 
ance of proclamation recogniz- 
ing belligerency of insurgents, 
337-39 ; G.'s later relations 
with, 384; quoted, 406; as a 
"dark horse" in 1876, 498 
and n.; G.'s high estimate of, 
498 n. ; 284, 292, 298, 323, 368, 
516, 522, 523, 524, 525. 
Fish, James F., 556, 557, 560. 
Fish, Nicholas, 324, 550 n. 



574 



INDEX 



Fishbaok, George W., 477. 

Fisher, Fort, capture of, 187. 

Fisk, James, Jr., and "Black 
Friday," 342 ff. 

Fiske, John, 91. 

Five Forks, battle of, and its 
effects, 192, 193. 

Florida, in disputed election of 
1S76, 502, 503 and n., 504, 
505, 507, 508, 509, 513, 514. 

Floyd, John B., in command at 
Donelson, 72, 73; hands over 
command to Buckner, 73. 

Foote, Andrew H., cooperates 
with G. in attack on Donel- 
son, 70-72; 77. 

Foreign policy, G.'s statement 
of, in inaugural, 335, 336. 

Forney, John W., and the quar- 
rel between G. and Sumner, 
317 ff. 

Forrest, Nathan B., 107, 108. 

Foster, Charles, 471. 

Franco-Prussian War, 305. 

Franklin, William B., at West 
Point with G., 21. 

Franklin, Tenn., battle of, 182. 

Frederick, Crown Prince of 
Germany (1877), 535. 

Free traders, nominate Groes- 
beck for President in 1872, 
418. 

Freedmen's Bureau bill, first, 
vetoed by Johnson, 235; sec- 
ond, passed over Johnson's 
veto, 236. 

Frelinghuysen, Frederick T., 
331, 513, 552, 554. 

Fremont, John C, commands 
Department of the West, 57; 
reprimands G., 63; his procla- 
mation of confiscation and 
emancipation in Missouri, 
modified by Lincoln, 67, 68; 
superseded by Halleck, 68; 
nominated for President by 
radical Republicans, 1864, 
172; 38, 59, 61, 62, 66, 270. 



Fry, James B., quoted concern- 
ing G. at West Point, 22, 23. 
Frye, William P., 472. 

Gambetta, L6on, 535. 

Garfield, James A., "almost a 
free trader," 394; quoted on 
the tariff, 394, 395; nominated 
for President in 1880, 546; 
death of, 551; 433, 505, 513, 
549, 550. 

Garland, A. H., Governor of 
Alabama, 462, 463. 

Garland, Colonel, on G. at 
Chapultepec, 28. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 233. 

Geneva Arbitration Board, its 
membership and award, 310. 

Georgetown, Ohio, 5, 6. 

Georgia, reorganized state gov- 
ernment in, 230; second "re- 
construction" in, 363-67; 
secures "home rule," 366; 360. 

Gibbon, Edward, 68. 

Gillmore, Quincy A., 174. 

Godkin, Edwin L., quoted on 
Motley, 292 n.; 380, 382, 398, 
412, 417, 491. 

Godwin, Parke, quoted, on 
nomination of Greeley, 417. 

Gold, manipulation of, by 
Gould and Fisk, 343 ff. 

"Gold Conspiracy," the, 342. 

Gortchakoff, Prince, 498 n., 535. 

Gould, Jay, and "Black Friday," 
342 ff. 

('■rant, Frederick D., G.'s son, 
556, 561. 

Grant, Hannah (Simpson), G.'s 
mother, 4; some characteris- 
tics of, inherited by G., 8, 9; 
G.'s relations with, 8, 9. 

Grant, Jesse Root, G.'s father, 
at Point Pleasant, 3, 4; moves 
to Georgetown, O., 4, 5; his 
character and opinions, 6, 7; 
G.'s relations with, 9; decides 
to send G. to West Point, 17; 



INDEX 



575 



on G.'s resignation from the 
army, 36; in prosperous cir- 
cumstances, 39; his injudi- 
cious defense of G., 100, 102; 
letters of G. to, 101, 102, 142; 
postmaster at Covington, Ky . , 
391; 11, 13, 18,43,46, 52,53, 
54, 390, 392. 

Grant, Jesse R., G.'s son, 534, 
556. 

Grant, Mrs. Julia (Dent), G.'s 
wife, 37, 191, 217, 348, 391, 
534, 560. 

Grant, Matthew, 7. 

Grant, Nellie. See Sartoris, 
Nellie (Grant). 

Grant, Noah, G.'s grandfather, 
7, 8." 

Grant, Peter, G.'s half-brother, 
8. 

Grant, Simpson, G.'s brother, 
39. 

Grant, Ulysses S. 
I. Early years. 

Birth, 3; first called Hiram 
Ulysses, 4; entered at West 
Point as Ulysses Simpson by 
mistake, 4; characteristics in- 
herited from his mother, 9; 
his knack with horses, 9, 10, 
12; his persistence, 9; his 
youth of hard work, 10, 11; 
the best-traveled boy in the 
village, 11, 12; anecdotes, 11- 
14; his early schooling, 15, 16; 
certain traits of, 15, 16; re- 
fuses to follow his father's 
trade, 17; appointed to West 
Point, 17, 18; his views there- 
on, 17, 18; quoted concerning 
his term there, 19, 20; his 
nicknames, 21; certain fellow 
cadets quoted concerning, 21, 
22, 23; his feats of horseman- 
ship, 22; his admiration for 
Scott and C. F. Smith, 23, 24; 
his rank on graduation, 24; 
commissioned in Fourth Infan- 



try, 24 ; distaste for military 
uniforms, 24, 25; at Jefferson 
Barracks, 25, 26; pays court 
to Julia Dent, and marries 
her, 25-27; joins Taylor's 
army of occupation, 27; op- 
posed to Mexican War, 27, 28; 
his service in the War, 28-30; 
describes his feelings in bat- 
tle, 29, 30; his experience in 
Mexico of great service to him 
in the Civil War, 30; a sub- 
altern at frontier posts, 30 ff. ; 
ordered to California, 32; his 
quality shown on the journey 
across the Isthmus, 32; at 
Vancouver and Humboldt, 
32, 33; fondness for his home, 
33 ; extent of his addiction to 
drink, 33; why did he leave 
the army? 34; resigns on pro- 
motion to captaincy, 35; tries 
farming at Whitehaven, 37, 
38; in real estate business in 
St. Louis, 38 ; had no political 
affiliations, 38; clerk for his 
brothers at Galena, 111., 39, 
40. 
II. The Civil War (1). 

On the approach of war, 41, 
42 ; drills Galena company, 41 ; 
his views after Sumter, 42-44; 
at Springfield, filling out army 
forms, 46; drill-master at out- 
lying camps, 46, 47 ; offers his 
services to Adjutant-General 
of the army, 48, 49; appointed 
colonel of 21st Illinois Volun- 
teers, 50; first contact with 
his command, 51, 52; six 
weeks in Missouri, 52-55; his 
first experience in independ- 
ent command, 55, 56; made 
brigadier-general by Lincoln, 
58; Washburne's friendship 
for, 58 ; his advantageous posi- 
tion, 59, 60; in camp at Cairo, 
Ky., 61; seizes Paducah, 62; 



576 



INDEX 



warns Kentucky legislature, 
62: reprimanded by Fremont, 
63; attacks Polk's camp a1 
Belmont, 63-65; his command 
consists almost wholly of vol- 
unteers, 66; his plan of opera- 
tions received coldly by Hal- 
leck, 68, 69; his plan described, 
69, 70; takes Fort Henry, 71; 
attacks Fort Donelson, and 
compels its surrender, 72-74; 
Buckner quoted concerning, 
74; Sherman's magnanimity 
toward, 74, 75; the military 
idol of the day, 75; markedly 
excluded by Halleck from com- 
mendation for Donelson, 76, 
77, but is first man promoted 
to major-general by Lincoln, 
77; charged by Halleck with 
disobedience to orders, and su- 
perseded by C. F. Smith, 7s, 
79; grudgingly restored to his 
command by Halleck, 79, 
who wrongfully attributes re- 
sponsibility to McClellan, 80, 
81; his Memoirs quoted, 81, 
82; his relations with Smith. 
82; his Memoirs quoted, as to 
best plan of campaign after 
Donelson, 83; proposes to ad- 
vance on Corinth, 85; but is 
forced to fight at Shiloh, 86 
88; his imperturbability, 87; 
fighting at a disadvantage, 88 ; 
theory on which he fought the 
second day's battle, 89, 90; 
called "Butcher Grant," 90; 
why he did not pursue the 
beaten foe, 91, 92; Northern 
denunciation of, after Shiloh, 
94; suggests movement on 
Vicksburg, and is rebuked by 
Halleck, 95; his strategic 
theory, 95, 96; Halleck's 
treatment of, 96, 97; asks to 
be relieved from duty, 97; 
Sherman's advice to, 97, 98; 



defended by Sherman, 98, and 
bitterly criticized by Harlan, 
98, 99; restored to separate 
command and goes to Mem- 
phis, 99; succeeds Halleck in 
Western command, 99, 100; 
at Corinth, doing nothing, 
in suinmerof 1862, 100; letters 
to Washburne and to his 
father on the attacks upon 
him, 100, 102; results of his 
strategy down to Shiloh, 104; 
his original plan for reduction 
of Vicksburg, concerted with 
Sherman, 106, 107; its failure, 
107, 108; McClernand's am- 
bition and rivalry the main 
obstacle to his success, 109- 
11; recalls McClernand, 111: 
ultimate result of his con- 
troversy with McClernand, 
112; relieves him of his com- 
mand for breach of discipline, 
112, 113; McClernand's last 
attack on, unsuccessful, 113; 
Sherman quoted on, 114; his 
further plans against Vicks- 
burg, 115; expels "Jews as a 
class" from his department, 
115; his order countermand- 
ed by Lincoln, 116; on trial 
at Washington, 116; ignores 
Stanton's "bribe," 116; the 
"wonderful" Vicksburg cam- 
paign, 117-19; his one set- 
back, 118; Pcmberton sur- 
renders to, 119; Sherman gives 
full credit to, for plan and exe- 
cution, 119, 120; his fame safe 
i hereafter, 120; his conviction 
that he was to be the one to 
end the war, 120, 121; Lin- 
coln's letter to, 122, 123 ; made 
a major-general, 123; his rela- 
tions with Rawlins, 124 ff. ; 
Rawlins's influence on, 1L'.">, 
126; his drinking habit, and 
Rawlins's service to him in 



INDEX 



577 



connection therewith, 125, 
126; his indebtedness to Dana, 
and relations with him, 123, 
128; Young and Dana quoted 
concerning, 128, 129; his army 
scattered after Vicksburg, 
130; and Rosecrans, 131; dis- 
courages suggestions that he 
be transferred to the East, 
131, 132; placed by Stanton 
in command of new Depart- 
ment of the Mississippi, 133; 
headquarters at Chattanoo- 
ga, 134, 135; relations with 
Thomas, 134; Chattanooga, 
the most completely planned 
of all his battles, 137, 138; 
Lincoln's telegram to, 139; 
" the coming man," 139 ; grade 
of lieutenant-general revived 
for, 140; made General-in- 
Chief of all the armies of the 
U.S., 140; letters to Wash- 
burne and Jesse Grant as to 
his ambition, 141, 142; dissi- 
pates Lincoln's fear of the 
"man on horseback," 141, 
142; remains at Nashville 
through winter of 1863-64, 
143; his fine letter to Sher- 
man, and Sherman's reply, 
143, 144; urged by Sherman 
to remain in West, 144. 
III. The Civil War (2). 

At Washington to receive 
his commission, 145 ff.; his 
first interview with Lincoln, 
145; pen-pictures of, by R. H. 
Dana, 146, Horace Porter, 
147, and Badeau, 147, 148; 
Lincoln's parting words to, 
and his reply, 149, 150; Lin- 
coln's dealings with, contrast- 
ed with those with other 
generals, 150, 151; conditions, 
military and political, North 
and South, when he took com- 
mand, 152-54; his relations 



with Meade, 154-56; his re- 
view of past operations, and 
plan of campaign, 157-59; 
aims to destroy Lee's army, 
159 ff.; capture of Richmond 
subordinate thereto, 159; his 
all-embracing plan, 160-62; 
underrates Lee, 162; the cam- 
paign in Virginia, 162 ff. ; the 
Wilderness, 163; his reception 
of bad news, 163; "a dis- 
closure of his soul," 164; from 
the Wilderness to the repulse 
at Cold Harbor, 165, 166, 168; 
the frontal charge a mistake, 
165; "I propose to fight it 
out on this line if it takes all 
summer," 166; character of 
his campaign changed after 
Cold Harbor, 166; eludes Lee 
by flanking movement and 
threatens Petersburg, 167; 
criticized on account of the 
campaign, 168, 169; his aims 
and achievements compared 
with McClellan's, 169, 170; 
quoted by J. R.Young, 170 n.; 
his plans foiled by blunders of 
Butler and Smith, 170, 171 ; at 
City Point in winter of 1864- 
65, 172; his troubles with his 
subordinates, 174; the Butler- 
Smith dispute, 174, 175; why 
he relieved Smith from duty, 
174, 175; relieves Butler after 
Fort Fisher, 175, 176; or- 
ders Sheridan to transform 
Meade's cavalry into a fight- 
ing force, 177, 178; sends 
Sheridan against Early, 179, 
180; quoted on Sheridan, ISO, 
181; approves Sherman's plan 
for marching to the sea, 181, 
182; fails to appreciate 
Thomas, 183; chafes over 
Thomas's failure to attack 
Hood at Nashville, 183-85; 
recommends Thomas's ap- 



578 



INDEX 



pointment as a major-general 
after the battle, 185; momen- 
tarily outdazzled by Sherman, 
186; their cordial relations, 
186; events shape the success 
of his grand strategy, 187; 
his headquarters at City 
Point, 188-91; leaves City 
Point, 191; occupies Peters- 
burg, 192, 193; asks Lee to 
surrender, 194; their corre- 
spondence, 194-96; meets 
Lee at Appomattox Court- 
House, 196 ff. ; the terms of 
surrender, 197 and n., 198, 
199; informs Stanton of the 
surrender, 199; a tower of 
strength in Washington after 
Lincoln's death, 200; saves 
Sherman from humiliation in 
matter of Johnston's surren- 
der, 201; reviews the army, 
201; disbanding the armies, 
202. 

IV. In Johnson's Adminis- 
tration. 
Distrusts Seward, 103; re- 
lations with Stanton, 203, 
217, 227, 260 n.; opposes 
Johnson's threat to try Lee 
for treason, 203-05; urges in- 
tervention to drive Maximil- 
ian from Mexico, 206, 207; 
Johnson seeks to make him 
his friend, 217; his non-com- 
mittal policy, 218; his mission 
to the South, and his report, 
220-22; his troubles in Wash- 
ington, 226, 227; a giant 
among pygmies, 227 ; if he had 
been in supreme control, 227, 
228; his Personal History 
quoted on negro suffrage, 228, 
and on Reconstruction, 229; 
forced by circumstances to 
support wholesale negro suf- 
frage, 229, 457; his "swing 
around the circle" with John- 



son, and its effect, 238, 239; 
letter of, to Sheridan on con- 
ditions in South, 239, 240; 
quoted as to his actions during 
the trouble between Johnson 
and Stanton, 242, 243; in- 
duces Johnson not to send 
troops to Baltimore, 243, 244; 
ordered to Mexico by John- 
son, but declines to go, 244- 
47; his justification, 245, 246; 
Sherman quoted on the sub- 
ject, 246, 247; and the Recon- 
struction Act, 249; has lit- 
tle influence on legislation, 
251; protests against removal 
of Stanton and Sheridan, 
251-53; uncertainty as to his 
attitude, 254, 256; appointed 
Acting Secretary of War, 254, 
255; G. Welles quoted on, 255; 
his taking the office a mistake, 
256, 257; his action criti- 
cized in North, 256, 258; breaks 
with Johnson over removal of 
Sheridan, 257, 258; relin- 
quishes office to Stanton, 259; 
Stanton's discourtesy to, 260; 
question of veracity between 
Johnson and, 261 ff.; his 
meeting with the Cabinet, 
Jan. 14, 1868, 263-65; his 
correspondence with Johnson 
challenges the latter's verac- 
ity, 265-68; refuses to hold 
further intercourse with John- 
son or his Cabinet, 268; nomi- 
nated for President by Repub- 
licans, 270, 271, and elected, 
271; in seclusion between 
nomination and election, 272. 
V. President. 

Confronted by critical con- 
ditions in the South, 273; re- 
fuses to ride with Johnson on 
inauguration day, 274; his 
first inaugural written wholly 
by himself, 274, 275; his Cab- 



INDEX 



579 



inet, 275-78; asks Senate to 
repeal the law making Stewart 
ineligible for Treasury, 276; 
brief review of his adminis- 
tration, 278-80; selects Fish 
as Secretary of State, 281; 
Seward's criticism of the ap- 
pointment, 281, 282; J. Bige- 
low quoted on the Cabinet, 
282, 283; relations with Sum- 
ner, 284 ff. ; mental and physi- 
cal contrast between Sumner 
and, 289, 290; believes in ex- 
pansion toward the South, 
297, 298; quoted on Motley's 
instructions and his disregard 
of them, 301 ; gives Fish a free 
hand with Great Britain, 304 ; 
his first annual message, 304; 
his second annual message, 
305; approves of Fish's ignor- 
ing Sumner in renewed ne- 
gotiations, 308 ; entitled to 
credit for establishing princi- 
ple of arbitration of interna- 
tional disputes, 311; Baez of 
San Domingo makes over- 
tures to, 313; sends Babcock 
to San Domingo to report on 
Samana Bay, 314, 315; his 
attitude on Babcock's action, 
315, 316; induces Fish to favor 
annexation, 316, 317; seeks 
ratification of treaty of an- 
nexation which results from 
Babcock's second mission, 
317 ff. ; his attempt to win 
Sumner, and the ensuing 
quarrel, 317-20; charged by 
Sumner with being intoxi- 
cated at the interview, 319; 
his persistent attempts to in- 
fluence Senators, 320-23, 321 
ft. ; angered by defeat of treaty, 
323; was Motley's removal an 
act of reprisal against Sum- 
ner? 323, 324, 331, 332; why 
Hoar was asked to resign, 325 ; 



revives San Domingo issue, 
326; Sumner's violent attack 
on, 327, 328; his message 
transmitting report of San 
Domingo Committee, 328, 
329; A. D. White quoted on, 
329, 330; his purpose in re- 
gard to San Domingo justified 
by events, 330; his views on 
acquisition of territory, 331; 
Fish's comment on his toler- 
ance of honest difference of 
opinion, as applied to Sum- 
ner, 332, 333; Sumner's con- 
tinued denunciation of, 333; 
his own comment on his rela- 
tions with Sumner, 334; his 
inaugural address, 335, 336; 
his foreign policy, 335; pro- 
poses tr> recognize belligerency 
of Cuba n insurgents, but is dis- 
suaded by Fish, 337-39; his 
declaration on public credit, 
339, 340; his connection with 
Gould and "Black Friday," 
through Corbin, 343 ff. ; his 
recommendations concerning 
the currency, 350; appoints 
Strong and Bradley to Su- 
preme Court, 354-56; charged 
with "packing" the Court, 
355; problem of the negro 
and the South, 357 ff. ; con- 
ditions that he had to meet, 
362 ff. ; his action in Georgia, 
364, and No. Carolina, 367; 
his special messages on ratifi- 
cation of 15th Amendment, 
368, 369, and on report of 
committee to investigate af- 
fairs in South, 372; acts in 
So. Carolina under Ku-Klux 
Act, 374; rehabilitation of 
seceding States due to his 
firmness in executing laws, 375; 
signs general amnesty bill, 375; 
S. Bowles quoted on, 379; 
Motley and Holmes quoted on, 



580 



INDEX 



380, 381; why ho failed to 
retain the liking of men of 
their type, 3N2; his ingenuous- 
ness in politics, 3N2; hi* indif- 
ference to literature, 383, 384; 
his favorite companions, 384; 
early signs of party disaffec- 
tion with, and their causes, 
385-89; deterioration of his 
Cabinet, 389, 390; his military 
aides, 390; his many relatives, 
390, 391; Sumner's charge of 
"nepotism," 391, 392; freely 
accepts gifts, 392; Rawlins's 
death a loss to, 393; C. E. 
Norton quoted, on his needs 
in the way of counselors, 393; 
his messages of 1870 and 1871 
quoted, on the tariff, 396, 397; 
his civil-service record, 398 ff. ; 
commended by Curtis, 399, 
400, 403, 404; urges appropria- 
tions for Civil Service Com- 
mission, 400; abandons the 
attempt at reform, 402, 403; 
his interest in the Indians, 
404, 405; quoted, on the <>\ er- 
righteous, 405, 406; dissatis- 
faction with, the only bond 
among Liberal Republicans, 
410, 413; their "Address" an 
undiluted denunciation of, 
418, 419; renominated by 
Republicans, 420; Sumner's 
May 31 speech on, 421, 422, 
423; cry of "Csesarism" 
raised against, 423, 457; de- 
fended by Carpenter, 423, 
424; reelected, 425; meanint: 
of result of election, 427, 428; 
his two faults, 428; signs sal- 
ary increase bill, 436; Butler's 
unfortunate influence over, 
437, 438; his leniency to Rich- 
ardson in matter of Sanborn 
contracts, 410, 441; refuses to 
innate currency in panic of 
1873, 444, 445; his annual 



message of 1873 quoted on 
financial matters, 446, 447; 
vetoes inflation bill, 448-51; 
his action commended, 451; 
in annual message of 1874 
urges resumption, 452-54; 
quoted on the problem of the 
South, 458, 459; his special 
message on Arkansas troubles, 
462; refuses to proclaim mar- 
tial law in Mississippi, 464, 
465; his special message on 
Louisiana troubles, 468; pro- 
tects Kellogg government 
there, 469; Sherman quoted 
on his honesty, 473; his loy- 
alty to his friends, worthy or 
unworthy, 474; relations with 
Babcock, 475; compromised 
by Babcock in whiskey 
frauds, 476 ff. ; angered by 
"persecution" of Babcock, 
480; charged with intervening 
to protect him, 481, 482; tes- 
tifies in his favor, 483, 484; 
relations with Babcock after 
his acquittal, 4S5; prejudiced 
against BristOw,485, 486, who 
resigns Treasury portfolio, 
487; accepts Belknap's resig- 
nation "with regret" after 
his impeachment, 489, 490; 
appoints Chandler Secretary 
of the Interior, 491 ; charac- 
ter of his appointments to 
Supreme Court, 492 ; his vari- 
ous nominations for Chief 
Justice to succeed Chase, 493- 
95; finally appoints Waite, 
495; his attitude on a third 
term in 1876, 497; emoted on 
the candidates for the succes- 
sion, 498 n.; takes measures to 
keep the pence after the elec- 
tion, 503, 504; sends "Visiting 
Statesmen" to Louisiana, 
505; strives to bring about a 
peaceful settlement, 509, 510; 



INDEX 



581 



approves Electoral Commis- 
sion bill, 511, 512; his atti- 
tude a powerful factor in bring- 
ing about a peaceful solution, 
519 and n., 520; his adminis- 
tration reviewed, 521 ff. ; his 
firm and consistent foreign 
policy, 522, 523; the Virgin- 
ius case, 523-25; his messages 
and second inaugural quoted, 
as to his policies, 525-27; up- 
holds American rights abroad, 
527, 528; urges building up of 
an American merchant ma- 
rine, 528, 529 ; on the perils of 
an ignorant, foreign-born elec- 
torate, 529, 530; reduction of 
public debt, 530, 531; his ad- 
ministration, in constructive 
achievement, second only to 
Washington's, 532. 
VI. Last Years. 

His trip around the world, 
534 ff. ; J. R. Lowell quoted on, 
536; his friends out of credit 
with Hayes's Administration, 
537; beginning of third-term 
talk, 538; his return from 
abroad premature, 539; goes 
to Mexico and Cuba, 539 ; the 
engineers of the third-term 
plan, 539, 540; quoted as to 
his attitude toward the plan, 
540, 541 ; the Republican Con- 
vention of 1880, 542 ff.; his 
forces led by Conkling, 544, 
545 and n.; his friends stand 
by him to the end, 546; his 
feeling as to the result, 547, 
548; supports the ticket, 550; 
sympathizes with Conkling in 
his row with Garfield, 550, 
551; relations with President 
Arthur, 552, 553; the Fitz- 
John Porter case, 553; com- 
missioner to negotiate com- 
mercial treaty with Mexico, 
554, 555; had fallen in public 



esteem, and why, 555; the 
Grant & Ward disaster, 556- 
59; loses all his property, 
559; is helped by friends, 559, 
560; writes the story of his 
battles for the Century, 561, 
followed by his Personal 
Memoirs, 561, 562, 563, 564; 
Congress passes bill under 
which he is restored to rank of 
lieutenant-general (March 3, 
1885), 563; his commission 
signed by Cleveland, 563; his 
death, 564; his letter to Dr. 
Douglass, 564, 565. 

Grant, Ulysses S., Jr., and 
Grant & Ward, 556 ff. 

Grant & Ward, 556 ff. 

Great Britain, outstanding dif- 
ferences with, 293; the John- 
son - Clarendon Convention, 
294 ff. ; violently attacked by 
Sumner, 295, 296; Fish's in- 
structions to Motley, 299, 
300 ; reopening of negotiations 
with, 303 ff., 306 ff.; Sumner 
insists on withdrawal of, from 
Canada, 307, 308; the Joint 
High Commission, 308, 309; 
negotiations with, influence 
handling of Cuban problem, 
337, 338. 

Greeley, Horace, on Missouri 
Liberal Republicans, 410; his 
dissatisfaction with G.'s ad- 
ministration leads to his in- 
dorsement of Liberal Repub- 
lican movement, 411; nomi- 
nated by Liberal Republicans 
for President, 415; unreason of 
his nomination, 415, 416; di- 
vers comments on it, 416,417; 
indorsed by Democrats, 421; 
had no chance of election, 
422 ; his overwhelming defeat, 
425, and death, 426; 395, 413, 
427, 551. 

Greenbacks, retired by Mc- 



582 



INDEX 



Cullough, 444, 445; G. refuses 
to reissue in 1873, 446; pro- 
posals in Congress to reissue, 
447; bill to authorize maxi- 
mum of $400,000,000 vetoed 
by G., 448-51. 

Grier, Justice, 354. 

Grimes, James \V., criticizes G.'s 
generalship, in Senate, 169. 

Groesbeck, William S., nomi- 
nated for President by free 
traders in 1872, 418. 

Hague Tribunal, the, 311. 

Halleck, Henry W., supersedes 
Fremont, 68 ; his character, 68 ; 
and G.'s plan of operations, 
68,69; after Donelson, praises 
everybody but G., 76, 77; 
reprimands G., and puts 
Smith over his head, 78, 79; 
grudgingly restores G. to his 
command, 79; attributes mis- 
understanding to McClellan, 
80, 81; G.'s comment on his 
action, 81, 82 ; his plan of cam- 
paign after Donelson, 84; 
his humorous "capture" of 
Corinth, 93; difference be- 
tween his strategic theory and 
G.'s, 95, 96; his treatment of 
G., 96, 97; his reply to Lin- 
coln as to responsibility for 
Shiloh, 97; made commander- 
in-chief, vice McClellan, 99, 
100; and G.'s Vicksburg cam- 
paign, 117 ff. ; his prejudice 
against G. overcome by Vicks- 
burg, 121; 59, 71, 72, 83, 94, 
105, 111, 131, 134, 136, 137, 
150, 165, 166, 167, 184, 226. 

Halstead, Murat, 412, 414. 

Hamer, Thomas L., appoints G. 
to West Point, 17. 

Hamilton, Schuyler, at W T est 
Point with G., 21. 

Hamlin, Hannibal, 494. 

Hampton, Wade, 518. 



Hancock, Winfield S., 247, 549. 

Hardee, William J., at Wesl 
Point with G., 21; quoted, 
23. 

Harlan, James, criticizes G. in 
Senate, 98, 99; 321. 

Harris, guerrilla officer, 54, 55. 

Harrison, Benjamin, 492. 

Haworth, The Hayes-Tilden Dis- 
puted Election, quoted, 509, 
510. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 291. 

Hay, John, 214. 

Hayes, Rutherford B., nomi- 
nated for President in 1876, 
498, 499; dispute as to his 
election, 501 ff. ; has majority 
of one in Electoral College, 
507; declared elected, 516; 
was he a fraudulent incum- 
bent? 517, 520, withdraws 
troops from Charleston, 518; 
pledged against a second term, 
537, but could not have been 
reelected, 537; 455, 508, 509, 
511, 546, 547. 

Hayti, 312. 

Heintzelmann, Samuel P., 59. 

Henderson, John B., and the 
whiskey frauds, 478 ff. 

Henry, Fort, strategic position 
of, 69; taken by G., 71. 

Hepburn vs. Griswold (Legal 
Tender case), 352-54; over- 
ruled, 355. 

Hewitt, Abram S., 501, 505, 506, 
510. 

Hillyer, Captain, 121. 

Hoadley, George, 412. 

Hoar, Ebenczer Rockwood, ap- 
pointed Attorney- General, 
277; his difficulties with Sena- 
tors, 277; his nomination to 
Supreme Court rejected, 277, 
325; on Joint High Commis- 
sion, 309; his resignation as 
Attorney-General requested, 
and why, 325, 326, 386, 388, 



INDEX 



583 



3S9; accused of having as- 
sisted in "packing" the Su- 
preme Court, 355, 356; quoted 
on G.'s honesty, 485 n. ; 354, 
438, 492, 493. 

Hoar, George F., quoted in de- 
fense of his brother, 355, 356, 
and on corruption in public 
life, 429, 430; the victim of 
his own hyperbole, 430; his 
Autobiography quoted on G.'s 
anger with Sumner, 438; 
quoted on massacre at Col- 
fax, 468; 439, 472, 513, 537. 

Holden, Governor of North 
Carolina, 367, 368. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Life of 
Motley, quoted, 303; quoted 
onG., 381; 291. 

Hood, John B., supersedes 
Johnston, 173; beaten by 
Schofield at Franklin, 182; 
before Nashville, 182-84; 
beaten by Thomas there, 185; 
177, 181. 

Hooker, Joseph, replies to Stan- 
ton's "bribe " by losing Chan- 
cellorsville, 116; at Lookout 
Mountain, 138; 59, 131, 132, 
137, 150, 160, 164. 

Hooper, Samuel, 383. 

Howard, Oliver O., 160. 

Howe, Samuel G., 328. 

Hunt, Justice Ward, 492. 

Hunter, David, 59, 71. 

Hunter, R. M. T., at City Point, 
188. 

Hunton, Eppa, 513. 

Hurlbut, Stephen S., 85, 109. 

Immigrants, literacy test for, be- 
fore naturalization, urged by 
G., 529, 530. 

Impeachment of President John- 
son, early talk of, comes to 
nothing, 259; House passes 
resolutions of, 259, 269; trial 
in Senate, 269 ff. 



Indians, the, G.'s interest in, 

404 ff.; 335. 
Inflation. See Currency and 

Greenbacks. 
Ingalls, Rufus, at West Point 

with G., 21; G.'s superior in 

his own field, 162. 
Ireland, American sympathy 

with, 294. 
Island No. 10, 99, 104. 

Jackson, Andrew, 398. 

Jackson, Claiborne, 47, 57. 

Jackson, Thomas J. ("Stone- 
wall"), in Mexican War, 30. 

Jackson, Miss., taken byG., 118. 

James, Thomas L., Postmaster- 
General, 550 n. 

Jewell, Marshall, Postmaster- 
General, asked to resign, 487. 

Johnson, Andrew, nominated 
for Vice-President, 172; his 
threat to try Lee for treason 
opposed byG., 203-05; denies 
amnesty to Lee and Long- 
street, 205 and n. ; declines to 
interfere in Mexico, 207; his 
accession regarded in North 
as a Godsend, 212, 213; his 
swift change of policy, 213, 
214; his proclamation of am- 
nesty, 215, 216; his character 
and defects, 215-17, 219; tries 
to win G.'s friendship, 217; 
favors qualified negro suffrage, 
218, 219; his early course com- 
mendable, 218; sends G. on 
mission to Southern States, 
220; alienates both North and 
South, 227, 228; his plan 
of Reconstruction apparently 
approved in North, 230, 231: 
might have won by a concilia- 
tory course, 231, 232; his 
message of Dec, 1865, gener- 
ally approved, 234; Sumner's 
criticism of, 234; vetoes 
Freedmen's Bureau bill, 235; 



584 



INDEX 



his violent speech of Feb. 22., 
1866, 235, 236; his v< I 
Civjl Rights bill and new 
Freedmen's Bureau bill over- 
ridden, 236; troubles with 
Congress due chiefly to per- 
sonal considerations, 237; his 
"swing around the circle," 
238, 239; his relations with 
Stanton badly strained, 239; 
his fatuous opposition to Con- 
gress and the result, 240, 241 ; 
his influence responsible for re- 
fusal of seceding States to rat- 
ify 14th Amendment, 241; G. 
out of sympathy with, 242, 
250; orders G. to Mexico, 
246-47; sends Sherman in 
G.'s place, 247; his veto of 
Reconstruction Act overrid- 
den, 249; removes Republi- 
can placemen, 249; his veto of 
Tenure of Office Act overrid- 
den, 249; and the measures of 
the 40th Congress, 251; his 
breach with Stanton com- 
plete, 251; tells G. of his pur- 
pose to oust Stanton and dis- 
place Sheridan, 251, 252; 
asks Stanton to resign, 253; 
suspends Stanton and ap- 
points G. ad interim, 254; 
breaks with G. over Sheri- 
dan's removal, 257, 258; his 
removal of Stanton leads to 
impeachment, 258, 259, 269; 
resents G.'s surrender of sec- 
retaryship, 261; question of 
veracity between G. and, 
261 ff. ; his interpretation of 
Tenure of Office Act, 261; 
fails to understand G., 263; 
G. breaks off intercourse with, 
268; endeavors to get rid of 
Stanton, 269; wishes to test 
Tenure of Office Act in courts, 
269; acquitted on impeach- 
ment trial, 269, 270; recom- 



mends annexation of San 
Domingo, 313; suggests re- 
pudiation of interest on debt, 
341; 260 n., 274, 279, 293, 
327, 372, 408, 476. 

Johnson, Reverdy, Minister to 
Great Britain, negotiates John- 
son - Clarendon Convention, 
293, 294. 

Johnson-Clarendon Convention, 
terms of, 294; ratification de- 
feated in Senate, 295; 299, 
300, 304. 

Johnston, Albert Sidney, in 
Mexican War, 30; commands 
Confederate troops west of 
Alleghanies, 69; commands at 
Shiloh, 84, 85, and is killed 
there, 88; effect of his death, 
88; 72, 76. 

Johnston, Joseph E., defeats 
Rosecrans at Chickamauga, 
130; forced back to Atlanta 
by Sherman, 172; superseded 
by Hood, 173; difficulty as to 
terms of his surrender to Sher- 
man, 201; 118, 131, 160, 161, 
170 n., 185, 191, 193. 

Johnston, William P., his Life 
of A. S. Johnston quoted, 70. 

Joint High Commission (1871), 
its powers, 308; membership 
of, 308, 309; submits Treaty 
of Washington, 309. 

Jomini, Baron Henry, 54. 

Jones, Mr., Minister to Belgium, 
321 n. 

Juarez, President of Mexico, 247. 

Julian, George W M quoted on 
accession of Johnson, 213; 
505, 506. 

Kasson, John A., 505. 
Kearney, Denis, 544. 
Kearny, Philip, 59. 
Kellogg, William P. (Louisiana), 

466, 467, 469, 471, 472. 
Kentucky Legislature, adopts 



INDEX 



585 



resolution favorable to Union, 
62. 

Keyes, Erasmus D., 59. 

Kirk, Colonel, 367. 

"Kirk's Raid," 367, 368. 

Ku-Klux Act. See " Enforce- 
ment Acts." 

Ku-Klux-Klan, 358, 361 and n., 
367, 371, 373, 374, 375, 463. 

Laird, Mr., builder of the Ala- 
bama, 294. 

Lee, Francis, quoted on G. at 
Chapultepec, 28. 

Lee, Robert E., in Mexican War, 
30; (in Civil War) responsibil- 
ity of, limited to his own com- 
mand, 162; G. underrates his 
quality, 162; precipitates bat- 
tle of the Wilderness, 163; 
forced back to Cold Harbor, 
where G. is repulsed, 165, 166; 
never face to face with G. 
again, 166; his army eluded 
by G. in flanking movement, 
167; his losses in the Wilder- 
ness campaign, 169; tries to 
break through lines at Peters- 
burg and join Johnston, 191; 
evacuates Petersburg, 192, 
193; at Jetersville, 193; asked 
by G. to surrender, 194; cor- 
respondence with G., 194-96; 
their meeting at Appomattox, 
196 ff. ; accepts G.'s terms, 
197-99; their further conver- 
sation, 200; threat of trial for 
treason, opposed by G., 203- 
05; denied amnesty, 205 and 
n.; 99, 142, 143, 145, 153, 155, 
156, 161, 169, 170 and n., 171, 
172, 173, 178, 179, 181, 183, 
187, 188, 201. 

Legal Tender Act, held uncon- 
stitutional by Supreme Court 
(1869), 352-54; held constitu- 
tional in 1872, 355. And see 
Supreme Court. 



L 'Enfant, Major, 475. 

Liberal Republican movement 
of 1872, originates in Mis- 
souri, 409; history of, 410 ff.; 
principal figures in, 411-13; 
absurdity of nomination of 
Greeley, 415, 416. 

Liberal Republicans, summoned 
to meet at Cincinnati, 410; 
convention of, how consti- 
tuted, 411; candidates for 
nomination of, 413, 414; nom- 
inate Greeley, 415 ff. ; their 
address to the people, 418, 
419; their platform and its 
tariff "straddle," 419, 420. 

Li Hung Chang, 536, 537. 

Lieber, Francis, 212. 

Lincoln, Abraham, appoints G. 
brigadier-general, 58, 59; his 
modification of Fremont's 
emancipation proclamation 
displeases North, 67, 68; ap- 
points Halleck in Fremont's 
place, 68; first promotes G. 
alone for capture of Donelson, 
77; compels G.'s restoration 
to his command, 79; and the 
responsibility for Shiloh, 96, 
97; his characterization of G., 
99; makes Halleck comman- 
der-in-chief, 99; his patron- 
age of McClernand and Logan, 
109, 110; conditionally in- 
dorses McClernand's Missis- 
sippi plan of campaign, 110, 
ill; denies McClernand's re- 
quest for court of inquiry, 113; 
and Swett's quarrel with G., 
116; his letter to G. after 
Vicksburg, 122, 123; makes 
G. major-general, 123; Dana's 
reports largely responsible for 
his clinging to G., 128; his 
telegram to G. after Chatta- 
nooga, 139; makes G. lieu- 
tenant-general and comman- 
der-in-chief, 140; fears advent 



58G 



INDEX 



of man on horseback, 141; his 
fears dissipated, 142; G.'s 
first interview with, 145; his 
last words to G. leaving for 
the front, 149, 150; his deal- 
ings with G. and with other 
generals, 150, 151; Northern 
discontent with his conduct of 
the war, 154; telegraphs G. 
after Cold Harbor, 167, 168; 
quoted on G., 168; renomi- 
nated in 1864, 172; calls for 
500,000 volunteers, 173; the 
famous memorandum of Au- 
gust 23, 173; and the Smith- 
Butler row, 175; quoted, 179, 
180; congratulates Sherman, 
186; meets Peace Commission 
at City Point, 188-90; pro- 
posed message to Congress 
urging compensation to slave- 
owners, withheld, 190, 191; 
murder of, 200, 212, 213; his 
probable course in Recon- 
struction, 208, 209; vetoi 
Reconstruction Act of 1S64, 
209, 210; his plans opposed 
by radicals, 210, 211; his 
speech of April 11, 1865, 211, 
212; Sumner's failure to un- 
derstand, 285, 286; 33, 41, 66, 
108, 126, 130, 177, 181, 183, 
191, 193, 219, 227, 229, 232, 
398, 466, 502. 
Lodge, Henry Cabot, Early 
Memories, quoted on Sum- 
ner, 288, 289. 
Logan, John A., ordered to re- 
place Thomas at Nashville, 
185; favors inflation, 447, 
449, 450; 384, 423, 496, 513, 
537, 540, 548. 
Longfellow, Henry W., 291. 
Longstreet, James, at West 
Point with G., 21; quoted on 
G. at Molino del Rey, 29; 
denied amnesty by Johnson, 
205 n. 



Lookout Mountain, 138. 

Louisiana, reorganized govern- 
ment of, not recognized by 
Congress, 210; conditions in, 
under G., 359; (1872-1875), 
466-72; in disputed election 
of 1876, 502, 503 n., 504, 505, 
506, 507, 508, 509; 375, 514. 

Louisville Courier- Journal, 413. 

Lowell, James Russell, quoted, 
67, 284, 536; 291, 380, 499. 

Lynch, John R., 361. 

Lyon, Nathaniel, 47, 59. 

McClellan, George B., at West 
Point with G., 21 ; his aims and 
achievement contrasted with 
G.'s, 169; clamor in North for 
G.'s supersession by, 173; 57, 
59, 65, 70, 77, 80, 81, 99, 131, 
150, 151, 153, 183. 

McClernand, John A., super- 
sedes Sherman, 108; his am- 
bition and jealousy of G., 
109 ff. ; as a Douglas Demo- 
crat, courted by Lincoln, 110; 
his self-praise and attacks on 
G., 110; his plan for the Mis- 
sissippi River campaign con- 
ditionally a] proved by Lincoln, 
1 10, 1 1 1 ; recalled by G., com- 
plains to Lincoln, 111; his in- 
subordination, 112; relieved of 
command for breach of dis- 
cipline, 112, 113; attacks G. in 
request for court of inquiry, 
113; Sherman quoted on, 113, 
114; 51, 52, 59, 64, 73, 77, 85, 
86, 88, 94, 115, 118, 298. 

McClure, Alexander K., 412. 

McCook, Alexander M., 130. 

McCrary, George W., 509. 

McCullough, Hugh, Secretary 
of the Treasury, greenbacks 
retired by, 444, 445, 447; 341, 
351. 

Macdonald, Sir John A., on 
Joint High Commission, 309. 



INDEX 



587 



McDonald, Mr., and the whis- 
key frauds, 478 and n., 482 n. 

McDowell, Irvin, 57, 59. 

McEnery, S. J. (Louisiana), 467. 

MacMahon, Marie-E-P-M. de, 
539. 

McPherson, James B., G.'s 
warm praise of, 143; 113, 144, 
423. 

Marine Bank of Brooklyn, and 
the failure of Grant & Ward, 
556 ff. 

Marsh, Caleb P., 488, 489. 

Marshall, Chief Justice John, 
353. 

Massachusetts, refuses assent to 
Johnson's policy, 231. 

Matthews, Stanley, 412, 416, 
505, 515 n. 

Maximilian, Archduke, in Mex- 
ico, 130, 205, 206, 244. 

Meade, George G., retained in 
command of the Army of the 
Potomac by G., 154; his rela- 
tions with G., 155, 156; his 
difficult temper, 156, 157; his 
long siege of Petersburg, 172; 
and Sheridan, 177, 178; 53, 
131, 153, 159, 161, 174, 175, 
193. 

Medill, Joseph, 412. 

Meigs, Montgomery C, 57. 

Merchant marine, building up 
of, urged by G., 528, 529. 

Merritt, Wesley, 192, 550 and n. 

Mexican War, G. quoted on, 27, 
28. 

Mexico, G. negotiates com- 
mercial treaty with, 554, 555. 
And see Maximilian. 

Military rule in South, G.'s 
views on, 458, 459. 

Mill Springs, battle of, 71. 

Miller, Justice Samuel F., mi- 
nority opinion in Legal Tender 
case, 353; 513, 515. 

Milwaukee, whiskey frauds in, 
476, 477. 



Missionary Ridge, 138, 139. 

Mississippi, reorganized state 
government in, 230; Senators 
and Representatives from, ad- 
mitted to Congress, 363; in 
1875, 463-66; 375. 

" Mississippi Plan," the, 465, 
466. 

Missouri, and the Liberal Re- 
publican movement of 1872, 
408, 409. 

Molino del Rey, battle of, 29. 

Moltke, Count von, 535. 

Monroe Doctrine, 322, 336, 527. 

Monterey, battle of, 28. 

Morgan, Edwin D., 552. 

Morgan, J. P. & Co., 443. 

Morrill Tariff, 394. 

Morris, Thomas, 17. 

Morton, Oliver P., favors infla- 
tion. 447, 449, 450; 231, 321, 
326, 327, 328, 331, 352, 365, 
373, 401, 444, 498, 513, 519 n. 

Moses, Franklin J., Jr., 472. 

Motley, J. Lothrop, quoted on 
G., 139, 140, 380, 381; urged 
by Sumner as Minister to 
Great Britain, 291, and ap- 
pointed, 295; defects of his 
qualities, 292 and n. ; prepares 
memorandum of instructions 
to be given him, which Fish 
disregards, 299, 300; in first 
interview with Clarendon dis- 
regards instructions, 300, 301, 
302; G. desires his immediate 
dismissal, 301; censured -by 
Fish, 301; negative results of 
his mission, 301, 302; Sir J. 
Rose's comments on, 303; 
demand for his resignation 
charged to G.'s anger with 
Sumner, 323-25, 331, 332; re- 
moved, 326, 331, 385, 386; 
284, 338, 551. 

Napoleon III, withdraws troops 
from Mexico, 244; 206. 



INDEX 



Nashville, Hood and Thomas in 
presence at, 182-84; battle of, 

the most complete Union vic- 
tory in the war, 185. 

Nation, the, 412, 413. 

National Intelligencer, quoted, 
264. 

Negro suffrage, approved by 
Johnson, with qualifications, 
218, 219; desired by Sumner 
without discrimination, 219, 
220; Schofield's views on, 223, 
224; G.'s views on, 228, 357, 
457, 459; G. forced by events 
to support, 229, 457; attitude 
of North toward, 232, 233; in 
election of 1808, 271; passage 
of 15th Amendment, 273; 
effect of hasty grant of, 450, 
457. 

Negroes, in "reconstructed" 
States, 359, 360, 361 ; dread of 
domination of, in the South, 
457; in Mississippi, in 1875, 
463, 464; massacre of, at Col- 
fax, La., 468. 

Nelson, Justice Samuel, on Joint 
High Commission, 308; 353. 

Nelson, William, 80, 87, 89. 

New Orleans riot (1806), 359. 

New York, factional quarrel in, 
in 1872, 410; row over ap- 
pointment of Robertson as 
Collector of, 550 and n. 

New York Evening Post, 412, 
413. 

New York Sun, 431. 

New York Tribune, quoted on 
Whiskey Ring prosecutions, 
484; 410, 411, 413, 416, 

Nicholls, Francis T. (Louisiana), 
518 and n. 

North, the, denunciation of G. 
after Shiloh, by press of, 94; 
military position of, when G. 
assumed chief command, 152, 
153; general conditions in, 
154; July and August, 1864, 



the darkest months of the war 
in, 172 ; one faction in, clamors 
for supersession of G. by Mc- 
Clellan, 173; Johnson's re- 
construction policy generally 
approved in, at first, 230, 232, 
233; blames G. for acquiescing 
in Stanton's removal, 256; 
misapprehension of Southern 
attitude toward negroes in, 
456. 

North American Review, quoted, 
485 n., 488 n. 

North Carolina, reorganized 
government in, 230; cor- 
ruption in; 367, 368; 360. 

Northcote, Sir Stafford, on Joint 
High Commission, 309. 

Norton, Charles Eliot, quoted, 
103, 200, 393. 

"Old Guard," the. See Stal- 
wart Republicans. 

Ord, Edward O. C, 105, 193, 
196 

Oregon, dispute as to an elector 
in, 507, 514. 

Ottendorfer, Oswald, 418. 

Packard, S. B. (Louisiana), 466, 

467, 518 and n., 549. 
Paducah, Ky., seized by G., 62. 
Painter, U. H., 214. 
Palmer, John M., 412, 505, 506. 
Palmer, Sir Roundell, 310. 
Panic of 1873, 443 ff. 
Patronage. See Spoils System. 
Patterson, James W., 307, 320, 

434. 
Payne, Henry B., 510, 513. 
Peace Commission, the, 188-90. 
Pemberton, John C, surrenders 

Vicksburg, 119; 30, 100, 108, 

117, 118, 170 n. 
Pennsylvania, refuses assent to 

Johnson's policy, 230. 
Perry, Mr., U.S., consular agent 

in San Domingo, 316. 



INDEX 



589 



Petersburg, Va., threatened by 
G., 167; Butler fails to attack, 
171; garrison of, reinforced, 
171; long siege of, 171, 172; 
occupied by G., 192, 193. 

Phelps, William W., 471. 

Philadelphia Times, 412. 

Phillips, Wendell, denounced by 
Johnson, 236; 233. 

Pierce, Franklin, 327. 

Pierrepont, Edwards, Attorney- 
General, 464, 4S1, 482, 483, 
535. 

Pillow, Gideon H., in command 
at Donelson, 70; G.'s low opin- 
ion of, 70; 72, 73. 

Pittsburg Landing, 85, 86. 

Pius IX, Pope, 535. 

Piatt, Thomas C., resigns New 
York Senatorship and seeks 
reelection, 550 and n. 

Point Pleasant, Ohio, 3. 

Poland, Luke P., 433, 462, 463. 

Polk, Leonidas, 61, 63, 70, 76. 

Polo, Senor, Spanish Minister to 
U.S., 524. 

Poore, Ben : Perley, and the quar- 
rel between G. and Sumner, 
317 ff. 

Pope, John, 48, 59, 77, 93, 95, 
104, 131, 164. 

Port Hudson, value of, to Con- 
federacy, 105. 

Porter, David D., runs Vicks- 
burg batteries, 117; 110. 

Porter, Fitz-John, his conviction 
reversed, 553; 59. 

Porter, Horace, his Campaigning 
with Grant quoted, 87, 134, 
135, 136, 147; 125, 165, 192, 
346, 347, 390, 538. 

Potomac, Army of the, G.'s first 
contact with, 155; from the 
Wilderness to Cold Harbor, 
162-66; losses in the cam- 
paign, 168. 

Potter, Clarkson N., 471. 

Prentiss, Benjamin M., cap- 



tured at Shiloh, 59, 85, 87, 88, 
89, 92; 94, 109. 

Price, Sterling, 63, 105. 

Pryor, Roger A., 466. 

Public credit, G. on the necessity 
of upholding, 339, 340; Con- 
gress passes act to strengthen, 
341. 

Public debt, proposal to pay, in 
greenbacks, 340, 341; in 1869, 
350, 351; reduction of, in G.'s 
administration, 530, 531. 

Quinby, Isaac F., at West Point 
with G., 21. 

Railroads, great increase in mile- 
age of, 442; finances of, 443. 

Randall, Samuel J., 516. 

Rawlins, John A., J. H. Wilson 
quoted on G. and, 124; was 
G.'s conscience, 124; selection 
of, for the staff, most fortu- 
nate for G., 124, 125; his char- 
acter and influence on G., 125, 
126; his service to G. in con- 
nection with the drink habit, 

125, 126; Dana quoted on, 

126, 127; appointed Secretary 
of War, 277, 278; sympathizes 
with Cuban insurgents, 337; 
his death, 338; a great loss 
to G., 393; 33, 119, 134, 163, 
266. 

Reconstruction, Lincoln's plan 
of, 208 ff. ; Stevens's and 
Sumner's views of, 211; Lin- 
coln's speech of April 11, 1865, 
on, 211, 212; what might have 
been, 219, 220, 224, 225; in 
G.'s administration, 357 ff. ; 
G.'s views on wisest policy of, 
458, 459. 

Reconstruction Act of 1864, ve- 
toed by Lincoln, 209, 210. 

Of 1867, passed by Congress over 
Johnson's veto, 248, 249; 
terms of, 249. 



590 



INDEX 



Reconstruction Committee of 
House, reports resolutions of 
impeachment of Johnson, 259, 
269. 

Red River, 105. 

Regiment, Fourth U.S. Infantry, 
G. commissioned second lieu- 
tenant in, 24; joins "army of 
occupation" in Texas, 27. 

Regiment, Twenty-First Illinois, 
G. appointed colonel of, 50, 51. 

Reid, John C., 501, 502 n. 

Republican National Conven- 
tion of 1 868, nominates Grant 
and Colfax, 270; financial 
platform adopted by, 341. 

Of 1872, renominates G., 
420, with H. Wilson, 421. 

Of 1880, third-term move- 
ment in 542-47; nominates 
Garfield, 546. 

Republican party, suffers on ac- 
count of salary grab, 437; 
loses control of House in 44th 
Congress, 452. 

Revels, Hiram R., 361, 363. 

Revenue reform. See Tariff re- 
form. 

Rlxxles, James Ford, History of the 
U.S., quoted, 146, 147, 485 n. 

Richardson, William A., Sec'y 
of the Treasury, and the San- 
born contracts, 439 ff. ; ap- 
pointed to Court of Claims, 
441; reissues greenbacks, 447, 
448; 345, 444, 476. 

Richmond, G.'s view of impor- 
tance of capture of, 159, 160; 
abandoned by Confederate 
Government, 193. 

Robertson, William H., sequel 
of his appointment as Collec- 
tor of New York, 550 and n. 

Robeson, George M., Secretary 
of the Navy, 278, 317, 389. 

Romero, Matias, 554. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 437. 

Rose, Sir John, negotiates with 



Fish, 302, 303, 306-08; quoted 
on Motley, 303; 333, 336. 
Rosecrans, William S., at West 
Point with G., 21; wins bat- 
tle of Stone River, 108; his 
reply to Stanton's "bribe," 
116; defeated by Johnston at 
Chickamauga, 130; and G., 
131; cooped up in Chatta- 
nooga, 132, 133; 57, 96, 105, 
107, 183. 

St. Louis, whiskey frauds in, 
476, 477. 

St. Louis Democrat, 477. 

"Salary Grab," the, 435-37. 

Samana Bay, 314, 317. 

San Domingo, rotation of Baez 
and Cabral in presidency (if, 
312, 313; Baez seeks interven- 
tion of U.S., 313; Johnson re- 
commends annexation of, 313, 
which is favored by G., 314; 
Babcock executes protocol to 
that end, 315, 316; his second 
visit results in treaty of an- 
nexation, etc., 317; Senate re- 
fuses ratification, 320-23; G. 
renews efforts for annexation, 
326 ff. ; committee of investi- 
gation appointed, 326-28, and 
reports favorably, but no ac- 
tion is taken, 329; was G. on 
the right path? 330; Schurz 
opposed to annexation of, 408. 
Sanborn, John D., and his 
contracts, 439-41. 

Sartoris, Algernon, 534. 

Sartoris, Nellie (Grant), G.'s 
daughter, 534. 

Saturday Club, the, 291. 

Schenck, Robert C, on Joint 
High Commission, 308; 15, 
331, 386. 

Schofield, John M., beats Hood 
at Franklin, 1S2; ordered to 
replace Thomas, 184; on ne- 
gro suffrage, 223-24; his mis- 









INDEX 



591 



sions to Mexico and Paris, 
244 ; his Forty-Six Years in the 
Army, quoted, 360 n.\ Secre- 
tary of War, vice Stanton, 277 ; 
130, 160, 225, 359, 360, 553. 

Schurz, Carl, Reminiscences, 
quoted, 283, 285, 286, 321 n., 
370; his history and character, 
407, 408 and n., 409; rebuked 
by Lincoln, 408 n. ; opposes 
San Domingo treaty, 408; 
mainly responsible for Liberal 
Republican movement of 1872, 
409, 410; his companions in 
the movement, 412; urges 
Greeley to withdraw, 417; 
quoted, 471, 491 n.; 320, 380, 
382, 384, 389, 398, 418, 491, 
537. 

Scott, Robert K. (So. Carolina), 
472. 

Scott, Winfield, G.'s early im- 
pressions of, 23, 24; general- 
in-chief at outbreak of Civil 
War, 57; 30, 31. 

Sedgwick, John, 155. 

Seward, William H., Secretary 
of State, distrusted by G., 
203; quoted, 281, 282; 145, 
188, 189, 207, 244, 245, 250, 
291, 294. 

Seymour, Horatio, Democratic 
candidate for President in 
1868, 271; 359. 

Sharkey, W. L. (Mississippi), 
218, 219. 

Shepard, Alexander, Governor 
of the District of Columbia, 
475, 476. 

Sheridan, Philip H., and Meade, 
177, 178; whips Stuart at 
Yellow Tavern, 178, 179; Ce- 
dar Creek and "Sheridan's 
Ride," 180; G. quoted on, 
180, 181; wins battle of Five 
Forks, 192; Johnson's reason 
for wishing to displace, 251; 
G. protests to Johnson against 



his displacement, 252; this 
question leads to break between 
Johnson and G., 257, 258; in 
Louisiana (1875), 470, 471; 
134, 139, 156, 170 n., 191, 193, 
194, 196, 205, 206, 207, 222, 
239, 247, 256, 297, 359, 360 n., 
381, 464, 505. 

Sherman, John, G.'s sole de- 
fender in Senate after Shiloh, 
98; and the panic of 1873, 
447, 448; and the resumption 
of specie payments, 454, 455; 
111, 234, 296, 339, 504, 505, 
507, 511, 513, 537, 545 n. 

Sherman, William T., quoted 
on G.'s character, 2, 56 n.; 
at West Point with G., 21; 
his magnanimity, 74, 75; 
quoted on C. F. Smith, 82; at 
Shiloh, 86 ff. ; his advice to G., 
97, 98; his anger at attacks on 
G., 102, 103; his part in G.'s 
original plan for capture of 
Vicksburg, 106, 107; his as- 
sault repulsed, 108, 115 
superseded by McClernand 
108; his anger against Lin- 
coln, 111, 112; quoted on Mc- 
Clernand and G., 113, 114 
opposes G.'s new plan of cam- 
paign against Vicksburg, 118 
119, but loyally helps to carry 
it out, 119 ; gives G. full credit, 
119; quoted on the campaign 
121, 122; G.'s fine letter to 
and his reply, 143, 144; urges 
G. to remain in West, 144, 145 
placed by G. in command of 
new Division of the Mississip- 
pi, 154; the march to the sea 
160, 161, 172, 173, 182, 185 
186; held at Atlanta, 173; en- 
ters Atlanta, 177; outdazzles 
G. in popular esteem, 186 
congratulated by Lincoln, 
186; cordial relations with 
G., 186; marches North from 



592 



INDEX 



Savannah, 187, to Goldsboro, 
N.C., 191; his "impossible" 
terms to Johnston, and their 
sequel, 201; G.'s tact saves 
him from humiliation, 201; 
quoted on G.'s troubles in 
Washington, 226, 227; or- 
dered to Washington, and 
why, 245, 246, 247; goes to 
Mexico in G.'s place, 247; 
quoted on G.'s qualifications 
for presidency, 279; 54, 55, 
70, 84, 96, 100, 115, 117, 132, 
134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 155, 
159, 170 »., 183, 193, 225, 
245, 260, 262, 263, 264, 360 n., 
381, 423, 473. 

Shiloh, battle of, 85-92. 

Sickles, Daniel E., 523, 524. 

Sigel, Franz, 160, 161. 

Simmons, William A., appointed 
Collector of Boston by But- 
ler's influence, 438. 

Slocum, Henry W., 160. 

Smith, Charles F., Comman- 
dant at West Point, 21; G.'s 
admiration for, 24; com- 
mands at Paducah, 70; tem- 
porarily supersedes G. after 
Donelson, 78-82; G.'s rela- 
tions with, 82; his early death, 
82; Sherman quoted on, 82; 
62, 68, 73, 76, 83, 84, 98. 

Smith, Kirby, 205. 

Smith, R. M., 361 n. 

Smith, Thomas Kilby, 13. 

Smith, William F. ("Baldy"), 
at Petersburg, 171 ; and But- 
ler, 174, 175; why relieved 
from duty by G., 174, 175; 
claims that Butler black- 
mailed G., 175; 135, 137. 

Sniffen, Charles C, 482 n., 
518 n. 

Solid South, the negro question 
sole cause of, 456, 457. 

South, G.'s mission to, 220-22; 
general opinion in, of John- 



son's accession, 222; State 
governments reorganized in 
1 L865), 230; threatening con- 
ditions in (1866), 239, 240; 
refuses to ratify 14th Amend- 
ment, 241; in the election of 
1868, 272; rule of carpet- 
baggers and scalawacs in, 272, 
273; critical conditions in, 
when G. became President, 
273; G.'s good-will toward, 
357; conditions in. during his 
administrations, 357 ff. ; report 
of committee to investigate 
affairs in, 372; predominance 
of negro question in, 456, 457; 
number of troops in, in 1872, 
458 and n. 

South Carolina, reorganized 
state government in, 230; ne- 
gro supremacy in, 360, 361 ; 
habeas corpus suspended in, 
374, 375; in the disputed elec- 
tion of 1876, 502, 503 and n.\ 
472, 514. 

Specie payments, resumption of, 
urged by G., 452, and pro- 
vided for by Congress, 454, 
455. 

Spoils system, denounced by 
G., 399, 400. 

Spotsylvania Court-House, 165. 

Springfield Republican, 379, 412, 
413. 

Stalwart Republicans, and the 
Third Term, 496, 497; out of 
favor and out of sorts with 
Hayes, 537; turn to G., 537; 
their diplomacy, looking to a 
third term, 53S; their daring 
and resourceful leaders, 539, 
540; preparing for the Con- 
vention, 542, 543; led by 
( 'onkling, 544, 545 n., 306 of 
them stand by G. to the end, 
546; support Garfield, 550. 

Stanbery, Henry, Attorney- 
General, 245. 



INDEX 



593 



Stanton, Edwin M., Secretary 
of War, offers a "bribe" to 
G., Hooker, and Rosecrans, 
116; puts G. in command of 
Division of the Mississippi, 
133; and the terms offered 
by Sherman to Johnston, 
201; G.'s sentiments to- 
ward, and relation with, 203; 
his want of tact in dealing 
with G., 217; his quarrel with 
Johnson of slow develop- 
ment, 231; relations with 
Johnson badly strained, 239; 
and the radicals in Congress, 
242; his original attitude on 
Tenure of Office Act, 250, 258; 
his breach with Johnson com- 
plete, 251 ; G. protests against 
his removal, 252; refuses to 
resign, 253; suspended, 254; 
his letter to Johnson, 255; his 
suspension not ratified by 
Senate, 259 ; resumes his office, 
259, 260; bars Thomas from 
the Department, 269; his re- 
moval admitted to have been 
within the law, 269; 77, 96, 
100, 119, 126, 128, 134, 172, 
176, 179, 181, 183, 199 and n., 
227, 235, 236, 243, 245, 246, 
247, 256, 260 n., 261, 262, 265, 
267, 268, 277, 354, 492. 

Stephens, Alexander H., at City 
Point, 188; his Recollections 
quoted, 189; Lincoln's inter- 
view with, 189, 190. 

Stevens, Thaddeus, opposes 
Lincoln's plan of reconstruc- 
tion, 210, 211; organizes op- 
position to Johnson in House, 
231; his character, 231; de- 
nounced by Johnson, 236; 
rushes Reconstruction bill 
through the House, 248, 249; 
215, 222, 269, 272. 

Stewart, A. T., nominated for 



Secretary of the Treasury, 
proves to be ineligible, 276. 

Stone, Charles P., 59. 

Stone River, battle of, and its 
ultimate result, 108. 

Strong, Justice William, and the 
second Legal Tender deci- 
sion, 354-56; 492, 513, 515. 

Stuart, J. E. B., beaten and 
killed at Yellow Tavern, 178, 
179. 

Sumner, Charles, his views on 
Reconstruction, 210, 211, 219, 
220; quoted on Lincoln's April 
11 speech, 212; organizes 
opposition to Johnson in 
Senate, 231; his character, 
231, 232, 287-89; denounces 
Johnson's policy, 233; his 
interview with Johnson, 234; 
denounced by Johnson, 236; 
relations with G., 284, 285, 
and with Fish, 285; his low 
opinion of G., 285; and Lin- 
coln, 285-87; leader of the 
Senate, 287; Lodge quoted on, 
288, 289; Schurz on, 289; 
C. F. Adams on G. and, 289, 
290; urges Motley for mission 
to Great Britain, 291 ; his vio- 
lent attack on the Johnson- 
Clarendon Convention, 295, 
296; Adams quoted on effect 
of his speech, 295; assumes 
to shape foreign policy of 
Administration, 298, 299; his 
influence leads Motley to 
disregard Fish's instructions, 
300, 301 ; insists on withdraw- 
al of Great Britain from West- 
ern hemisphere, 307, 308; de- 
posed from Chairmanship of 
Foreign Relations Committee, 
309, 333, 385; G. seeks his 
support in San Domingo 
matter, 317 ff.; divergent re- 
ports concerning their inter- 
view, 318-20; G.'s anger, and 



594 



INDEX 



the removal of Motley, 323- 
25, 33 1 , 332 ; his wrath against 
G., 326, 327; his "Naboth's 
Vineyard" speech, 327, 328; 
breaks with Fish over Motley 
matter, 333; ignored by Ad- 
ministration in all diplomatic 
business, 333; has few real 
friends in Senate, 333; un- 
sparing in denunciation of G., 
333; G.'s "curious comment" 
on, 334; blocks bill for general 
amnesty, 377; his Civil Rights 
bill, 378; charges G. with 
nepotism, 391, 392; his speech 
of May 31, 1872, 421, 422; 
215, 222, 223, 276, 281, 282, 
303, 337, 365, 380, 381, 382, 
384, 385, 389, 398, 399, 412, 
437, 438, 439, 551. 

Supreme Court of the U.S., holds 
Legal Tender Act unconstitu- 
tional, 352-54; how divided on 
the question, 353, 354; re- 
verses itself after appointment 
of Strong and Bradley, 354, 
355; was the Court packed? 
355, 356; denies constitu- 
tionality of Enforcement 
Acts, 373, 374; holds Civil 
Rights bill unconstitutional, 
463. 

Swann, Thomas, Governor of 
Maryland, 243. 

Swayne, Justice Noah H., 354. 

Sweeney, Peter B., 343. 

Swett, Leonard, and G., 116. 

Taft, William H., 492. 

Tammany Hall, 371. 

Tariff, the, Act of 1870, 395; acts 
of 1872, 397, 398; in party 
platforms of 1872, 419, 420; 
G.'s views on, 530. 

Tariff reform, agitation for, 
394 ff.;G. quoted on, 395-97; 
included in Missouri Liberal 
Republican platform, 410, but 



kept out of national platform 
by Greeley, 415. 

Taylor, Bayard, 498 n. 

Taylor, Zachary, 27, 30. 

Tennessee, 360. 

Tenterden, C. S. A. Abbott, 
Baron, 310. 

Tenure of Office Act, passed 
over Johnson's veto, 249 ; Stan- 
ton's early views on, 250, 252 ; 
relation of, to Stanton's case, 
259, 261 ff.; 269. 

Terry, Alfred A., 187, 365. 

Texas, Senators and Represen- 
tatives admitted to Congress 
from, 363. 

Thayer, William R., Life of John 
Hay, 214. 

Third Term, talk of, in 1876, 
496, 497; G. opposed to, 497; 
House passes resolution con- 
demning, 497 n.; Stalwarts 
plan for, in 1880, 537, 538; 
deep-rooted feeling against, in 
country, 539. 

Thomas, George H., at West 
Point with G., 21; takes Mill 
Springs, 71; the "Rock of 
Chickamauga," 130, 131, 132; 
refuses to supersede Rosecrans, 
133; relations with G., 134; 
his delay in attacking Hood at 
Nashville, 182 ff. ; underrated 
by G., 183 ; G. urges him to at- 
tack, 183, 184; orders Scho- 
field to take over his command, 
and suspends the order, 184; 
Logan under orders to super- 
sede him when he destroys 
Hood's army at Nashville, 
185; is made major-general, 
185; 69, 77, 95, 135, 137, 138, 
139, 155, 160, 181, 225. 

Thomas Lorenzo, ordered by 
Johnson to take possession of 
Stanton's office, but is barred 
out, 269; 259. 

Thompson, Jacob, 377. 



INDEX 



595 



Thornton, Sir Edward, on Joint 
High Commission, 309; 303. 

Thurman, Allen G., 370, 373, 
511, 513. 

Tilden, Samuel J., Democratic 
candidate for President in 
1876, 499; Watterson quoted 
on, 499 n. ; dispute over elec- 
tion, 500 ff. ; should he have 
been declared elected? 516, 
517; 511, 512, 519 n., 520. 

Tilton, Theodore, 412. 

Tod, David, 8. 

Tod, George, 8. 

Triumvirate, the, in Third Term 
movement, 540. 

Trobriand, P. R. de, 470, 471 ,472. 

Trumbull, Lyman, 234, 384, 389, 
412, 413, 414, 416, 505, 506. 

Tweed, William M., 343, 528. 

Tyner, James N., Postmaster- 
General, 487. 

Underwood, Judge, 203, 204. 
Union Pacific Railroad, and the 
Credit Mobilier, 431 ff. 

Van Buren, Martin, 535. 

Van Dorn, Earl, 63, 105, 106, 108. 

Vanderbilt, William H., his loan 
to G., 559, 560. 

Vicksburg, value of, to Con- 
federacy, 105; well-nigh im- 
pregnable, 105, 106; first cam- 
paign for reduction of, 106, 
107; Sherman's assault on, re- 
pulsed, 108; final campaign 
against, 117, 118; fall of, 119. 

Viele, Ernest L., 22. 

Virginia, Senators and Repre- 
sentatives admitted to Con- 
gress from, 363; 359, 360. 

Virginius case, the, 523-25. 

"Visiting Statesmen" in Louis- 
iana, 505, 506. 

Wade, Benjamin F., 213, 222, 
254, 328. 



Waite, Morrison R., appointed 
Chief Justice, 495; 310, 328, 
483, 516. 

Wallace, Lew, 73, 77, 85, 86, 87, 
89, 505. 

Wallace, William, killed at 
Shiloh, 89; 85. 

Ward, Ferdinand, responsible 
for G.'s financial disaster, 
556 ff., 560. 

Warmoth, Henry C. (Louisiana), 
466, 467. 

Warren, G. K., 174. 

Washburne, Elihu B., instru- 
mental in securing G.'s first 
commission as bridadier-gen- 
eral, 58, 59 ; first suggests that 
G. be made lieutenant-general, 
141; appointed Secretary of 
State, 275; 71, 100, 101, 276, 
280, 282, 425, 432, 540, 541, 
542, 548. 

Washington, George, G.'s Ad- 
ministration ranks second to 
his, 532. 

Washington (capital), thrown 
into panic by Early's raid, 172. 

Washington, Treaty of, 309, 
310, 530. 

Watterson, Henry, quoted, 
499 n., 515 n.; 413, 506. 

Watts, Mr., an Oregon elector, 
507. 

Wayne, Justice James M., 354. 

Welles, Gideon, his Diary 
quoted, 233, 255, 265. 

Wells, David A., 412, 414, 418. 

Wells, J. Madison (Louisiana), 
251, 505, 506. 

Welsh, William, 404. 

Wheeler, William A., 472. 

Whiskey Ring, the, 476 ff. 

White, Andrew D., quoted, 313, 
329, 330. 

White, Horace, Life of Lyman 
Trumbull quoted, 413, 414; 
on nomination of Greeley, 
417; 412. 



596 



INDEX 



White Leagues, 357, 361, 469. 

Williams, George H. on Joint 
High Commission, 309; At- 
torney-General, 467; declines 
Chief Justiceship, 493, 494. 

Wilmington, No. Carolina, 187. 

Wilson, Bluford, 480. 

Wilson, Henry, nominated for 
Vice-President, 421; 222, 365, 
424, 425, 433. 

Wilson, James F., 280, 281. 

Wilson, James H., Life of C. A 
Dana, quoted, 124; 56 n., 125, 
128, 174, 191,221. 

Wilson, Jeremiah M., 433. 

Windom, William, 542. 



Wood, Charles, his loan to G., 

559. 
Wood, Mr., 138, 139. 
Worth, William J., quoted, 28. 

Yates, Richard, Governor of 
Illinois, employs G. in ad- 
jutant-general's office, 45, 46; 
makes G. Colonel of 21st 
Illinois, 49, 50; 58. 

Young, John Russell, Around 
the World with General Grant 
quoted, 128, 129, 170 n., 301, 
458, 459, 498 n.; 536, 543. 

Zollicoffer, Felix K., 69. 



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